


Prom King

by patchfire, raving_liberal



Series: Story of Three Boys [50]
Category: Glee
Genre: Cuddling and Snuggling, Drunk Kisses, Easter Egg, Flirting, Gen, M/M, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-19
Updated: 2012-03-23
Packaged: 2017-11-02 05:03:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 31,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/365281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/patchfire/pseuds/patchfire, https://archiveofourown.org/users/raving_liberal/pseuds/raving_liberal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Puck has a suggestion or two for Rachel; Mercedes shares some "facts" with Quinn; Pop-Tarts, puffy vests, and pear hips; Campaign of terror; PFLAG, pizza, and all the different ways of coming out; Boy Pretzel or girl Pretzel?; Dancing in all the possible combinations; King and Queen; Fixing Finn's lack; the many labors of Miles Brown.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Teaser

**Author's Note:**

> Copyediting by **david_of_oz**
> 
>    
> If you missed our post over the previous weekend, we wanted to let everyone know we're going to take a [one week posting hiatus](http://storyof3boys.livejournal.com/62005.html) during the first week of April. During that week, we'll make a post explaining some of our headcanon and answering questions you might have (within reason regarding spoilers!). 
> 
> <3 to all of our readers & commenters. Really. <3

Rachel looks surprisingly upbeat when Puck walks into English on Tuesday, which makes him wonder how upset she ever was the day before. “No more tears over prom?”

“I’ve simply realized that my tears were unproductive,” Rachel responds, startling slightly, and as she talks, Puck can watch her carefully look more saddened than she did before he said anything. 

“You know, I’m sure you can still find a date, if you want one.” Puck shrugs. “Plenty of people don’t have dates.”

“I do _not_ want to attend my senior prom with Jacob ben Israel!”

“Yeah, I wasn’t gonna suggest him,” Puck chuckles. “You know who I bet would go with you? Brown. I mean, you’re a person, right? Didn’t change into an alien or something while we weren’t looking?”

Rachel huffs. “Of course I’m a person, Noah. Don’t be so ridiculous.” She narrows her eyes. “I don’t know that I would want to go with Brown.”

“I can’t blame you there,” Puck admits. “Let’s see. Oh, I know.”

“Yes?” Rachel sounds a little too eager, and Puck has to work not to laugh and give it away. 

“I can think of at least one other person without a date. I’m sure the two of you would make a lovely couple for prom.” He stops and grins. “Of course, maybe you two wouldn’t coordinate that well.”

“Coordinate? What do you mean?”

Puck finally laughs. “Your dresses. You could go with Quinn, you know.”

“Noah Puckerman, that’s not funny!” Rachel scowls at him. 

“Just a thought,” Puck says, still laughing. “Just a thought.”

 

“I don’t even know why I’m so upset,” Quinn says. “I’m happy for her, too, but I just can’t stop crying.”

“Of course you’re happy for her, but Quinn, honey, it’s okay to be sad, too.” Mercedes wraps her arm around Quinn’s shoulders gently. 

“I’m just figuring out the angry thing,” Quinn sigh, still sniffling. “Now I have to figure out the sad thing, too. Can’t I just go to college now and process the rest of this later?”

“I wish you could.” Mercedes shakes her head. “Don’t tell me you’ve got a countdown going, too.”

“I might have started one recently,” Quinn confesses. “It’s not the worst idea.”

“You feelin’ up to some gossip?” Mercedes says conspiratorially. 

“Always,” Quinn says. She dabs at her eyes with a tissue. “I think I could really use some gossip.”

“I almost forgot about it, what with everyone’s T-shirts, you know? But I think I figured out—or overheard—why Puckerman’s been so weird. He was talking on the phone to someone, all flirty and happy. I’m telling you, that girl he met in New York.” Mercedes shakes her head. “ _He_ was counting down, too.”

Quinn nods at the mention of the countdown. “Which girl? The dark-haired one or the chubby one?”

“I think it’s the dark-haired one, but who knows, right? She’s the one that he was standing next to in that picture.” Mercedes shakes her head. “I can’t believe he’s doing that ‘prom queen’ thing.”

“I can believe it,” Quinn laughs. “He was always good at taking a joke just far enough. I’m amazed the two of them didn’t find a way to rope Finn into it.” She shakes her head at the idea of the three of them, let alone the two of them, somehow running together on the same ticket. “If Puck’s met somebody, though, I’m happy for him. It’s time for all of us to move on, Mercedes. Me, him, all of us.”

“I guess I’m not so sure I’m ready for the end yet,” Mercedes admits.


	2. Better People

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The many labors of Miles Brown.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Playlist track for 3x31](http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL17BE1B10C8C2779C)

I.

“Sorry it’s take-out again, boys, but it’s that time of year for spending the day outdoors working on the lawn,” Paul says as he distributes the cartons of Chinese food. 

“Oh! There’s sweet ’n’ sour chicken again!” Casey says. 

“And your fried rice,” Dave adds, sliding the carton towards Casey. “General Tso for me, beef for you, Dad. And the lawn looks good.”

“I think we need some new seed for the side of the garage, but other than that, I agree.”

“You should plant some decorative cabbages,” Casey says, pouring about half the container of sweet n’ sour sauce over his rice and three small pieces of chicken. “I just heard about those. I don’t know what makes them decorative, but I like the idea of them.”

“But you can’t eat them.” Dave frowns a little. “So what’s the point?”

“I’m not sure, other than to be able to say ‘please observe my decorative cabbages’,” Casey says. “That would be fun to say.”

“I think I’d feel a little strange about that,” Paul says, chuckling. “Well, dig in boys! Any big plans for the evening?”

“There’s a big container of ice cream,” Dave jokes. 

“We should come up with some more of those Herculean tasks for Miles and see if we can make him do them,” Casey says. “Maybe we could get him to do a long list of things. That would be funny.”

“Alternate ridiculous ones with ones that actually benefit someone, maybe. He could take food to the food pantry or something.”

“Oh, that’s so nice! Yes, we should make a list as soon as we’re done eating,” Casey says. “When you’re done. I can be done any time.”

“I always take longer than you, Case,” Dave points out, amused.

“Not at lunch!”

“That’s not real eating, that’s stuffing food in my mouth as quickly as possible. It’s a crime.”

“I never finish mine in time any more,” Casey says. “They should give us more time. I feel like cattle. Cattle in a feed lot.”

“They really should. Less class, more lunch.” Dave grins. 

“Well, boys, I’m going to save the rest of this for later,” Paul announces, closing his cartons and putting them in the refrigerator. “I think I’ll go look online about what kind of seed to get.”

“Grass.”

“You!” Paul shakes his head at Dave. “Just for that, I’m ordering holly bushes instead.” With that, Paul leaves the kitchen, still chuckling slightly to himself. 

“That would be hard to mow,” Casey says. He’s eaten a whole two pieces of chicken, but all of his rice and sauce, and he rinses off his plate thoroughly before putting it into the dishwasher and then goes back to take Dave’s plate and do the same with it.

“Weedwhacker instead, I think.”

“Too bad we don’t already have the holly bushes. That would be a good task for Miles.”

“Hey, he could have to go buy a bush and plant it. That guerrilla gardening thing.”

“Oh! Hang on, I’ll get my notebook!” Casey darts up the stairs and quickly returns with his notebook. “Let’s make a list and then I’ll start texting them to Miles.” He scribbles down ‘plant a bush’ and looks up at Dave expectantly. 

“So that’s actually beneficial. I think he needs to go find a picture of something ridiculous. A purple house?”

“What should he do with it? Take a picture of it? If he just paints a random house, he might get arrested and then he’ll got to jail, and oh! Then he’ll slide into a life of crime, David!” Casey looks like he can’t quite decide if he’s upset or excited over the idea of Brown’s life of crime. “That defeats the whole purpose of trying to humanize him through tasks and labors.”

“Yeah, just take a picture. I think there’s a purple house close to Shawnee.”

Casey scribbles down ‘picture of purple house’ and then his face lights up. “Milkshakes! That’s beneficial to us, anyway!”

“Buying them, right? He should buy one each for Alicia and Rick, too.”

“Yes, because they are also long-suffering,” Casey nods. “Milkshakes for everybody and if he gets the orders wrong, he has to go back.”

“After that, he should go out to the mall and ask twenty people to name their favorite… animal? Sports team? Wii game?” Casey starts giggling and turns bright red. “Wait, what?”

“ _Position_ ,” Casey says, and starts giggling all over again. “That’s what he should have to ask.”

“Nah, he would enjoy that way too much. Maybe kind of deodorant.”

Casey keeps giggling occasionally, but he writes down ‘ask people about deodorant at the mall’. “Now he needs to do something very decent and good. What’s a good and decent thing he could do? Something for charity.”

“Hmm. Well, he could go volunteer at the soup kitchen. Or just take food, like we said.”

“Taking the food is good. He should sign up to volunteer somewhere, though. Oh! He could come to church with us and help with the very small children,” Casey says. 

“Case, think about that for a minute. Brown? Around tiny kids?”

“You let _me_ around tiny kids!” Casey says. “Why should he get to be safe from the kids?”

“Uh. I was thinking about the kids being safe from _him_.”

“Oh, Miles isn’t dangerous. He’s just, um. Oh! Disreputable! He’s disreputable,” Casey says. “Hmm. You’re right, though. I don’t think disreputable people should be around the kids. I think their mothers would be upset.”

“Exactly. So maybe— hey, I know. Habitat. He can sign up to help build a house one weekend.”

“ _We_ should sign up to build a house one weekend,” Casey says. “That would be fun. We should do that. Can we do that? We should _all_ do that!”

“Different weekends, Case. Maybe Dad would want to do it, too.”

“Or maybe we just don’t have Miles do that one at all and we keep it just for us.”

“Well, he’s good muscle. I’d hate to deprive Habitat of that.”

“Okay then, a different weekend,” Casey says, and writes it on the list. “I bet we could get Rick to help him out. Rick’s so nice. Taylor, maybe, too.”

“PFLAG for Habitat.”

“I like that! We should do that every year.” Casey frowns at the notepad. “Well, PFLAG should, anyway. Okay, how’s this list look?” He slides the notepad over to Dave.

“Guerrilla gardening, picture of a purple house, milkshakes, deodorant survey, food to the food pantry, and signing up to volunteer at Habitat. Sounds good.”

“Great! I’ll text him the first one. I think he only gets one at a time, or he might be overwhelmed and then we don’t get milkshakes.”

 

II.

“My _mission_? What is this?” Miles stares at the text on his phone. 

“Who texted you that?” Rick asks, peering at the words on Miles’ phone like they’re written in some confusing foreign language. 

“Cherry did!” Miles frowns. 

“Well, what’s the mission?”

“It says the first one is guerrilla gardening.” Miles shakes his head. “What is Cherry thinking?”

“I’m sure I got no idea about that,” Rick says. “How do you garden a gorilla, anyway? That doesn’t really make sense at all, Brown. Alicia, you ever heard of gardening a gorilla?”

“Not a gorilla, Foots! _Guerrilla_. I think you plant shit without telling the people that own the lawn or whatever.”

“That doesn’t make any more sense than gorillas, Brown.”

“Are you going to do it, Miles?” Alicia asks. “What are you supposed to plant and where?”

Miles sighs dramatically. “Well, I guess I am going to do it. Hanging out with the two of you is getting a little boring, and by getting, I mean it was boring from the get-go. And it’ll make Cherry happy, so.”

“Believe me, hanging out with you? No picnic. You’re like a rain cloud, Miles. A dreary rain cloud.” Alicia shakes her head. “Well, go plant something. No one’s in the house at the corner right now, you know.”

“Alright. You know the best place to get a holly bush?”

Alicia rolls her eyes. “The Wal-Mart, Miles. Wal-Mart. It’s five minutes from here.”

“Fine,” Miles says. “I’ll be back in twenty minutes.” Miles gets in his car and drives to Wal-Mart, where he buys a small holly bush and a small shovel, then he drives back to his street and parks in front of the empty house on the corner. “I cannot believe I’m actually going along with this nonsense,” he grumbles to himself, as he digs a hole that looks deep enough to hold the bush. After he’s gotten the damn thing planted, he snaps a picture with his phone and sends it to Casey.

About a minute and a half later, Casey texts back _Good job Miles! Your next mission: take picture of purple house. Text upon completion._

What Miles says out loud is, “What is this fuckery?” What Miles texts back to Casey, however, is _this gonna get me back in ur good graces cherry?_

_This is making you a better person Miles. I like better people better._

Miles shakes his head and climbs back into his car, driving south. There’s a bright purple house somewhere down Shawnee. Miles gets turned around in a cul-de-sac twice and a dead end once, but eventually he finds the damn purple house and pulls out his phone again to take a picture of _that_. 

_satisfied cherry? how does house make me better ppl?_

_Doing things that make other people happy makes you better. Know what would make me happy?_

_hope its not something in dayton_

_Milkshakes._

Miles just sighs, resigned. _how many what flavor_

_Vanilla for David, strawberry for Rick, flavor of month for Alicia and something exciting for me_

“Yeah, Shep would want vanilla,” Miles scoffs, putting the phone down and cranking the radio as he heads back north. He heads over to Dairy King, because it’s pretty close to where he left Alicia, anyway, and he bets they’re all four there, waiting on their free milkshakes. He orders the first three milkshakes and then frowns.

“What do you have that’s exciting?” he asks the girl at the counter.

“Huh?” the girl answers. She looks at Miles like he’s grown a second head. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t know, my friend Cherry, he wants something exciting.” Miles looks over the list of flavors. “Can you mix the turtle–no, the toffee, the coffee, and the pineapple?”

“Why would you want to? And you want the cherry in it, too?”

“Yeah, maybe leave out the coffee, all right? Toffee and pineapple, plenty of whipped cream.” Miles grins. “ _Two_ cherries on that one.”

The girl shakes her head at him. “Whatever you say. Let me know how your friend likes it, I guess.” She mixes up all the shakes and hands them over to Miles, still looking at him like he’s questionable people. 

Miles takes the drink carrier and makes it out to the car before he realizes he should’ve bought _himself_ a milkshake, too. He’s almost back to his house when he gets another text, and he checks it after turning the car off.

_Leave milkshakes on the stoop at Davids and take a picture. Do not ring bell. Do not collect $200. Give Rick & Alicia theirs first!_

Miles huffs and grabs the two that stay, walking up the sidewalk. Alicia opens the door before he even gets close to the house. “Look, Daniel, my brother brought us refreshments!”

“Those look like mighty tasty milkshakes you got there, Brown!” Rick says. “That’s real decent of you.”

“Yeah, you’re welcome,” Miles grumbles, handing over the two milkshakes and walking back to his car. “You two in on this from the beginning or did he bring you in later?”

“Brown, you shouldn’t be so paranoid. You sound like one of those guys that think we didn’t land on the moon,” Rick says.

“Right.” Miles shakes his head sadly. “My own sister, turning against me.” Alicia just waves and Miles climbs in, driving over to Karofsky’s. He does as instructed, taking the picture and then waiting for another text in his car.

_This milkshake is very exciting!_

_toffee and pineapple mix_

_You’re very creative._

_thanks cherry. am i done now?_

_Nope! Now go to the mall and interview 20 people about their brand of deodorant._

“What the hell, Cherry?” Miles says to his otherwise–empty car. “This is some messed up scavenger hunt, is what this is.” He drives over to the mall anyway, though, and he starts with the three people at the cheesesteak place, because he’s hungry now. Since the instructions didn’t say anything about pictures this time, he decides to record the answers on his phone. 

Four, five, and six are the people behind him in line at the cheesesteak place, but he strikes out with the old lady sitting at the table next to his. Seven and eight are a pair of hotties near the stairs, and then Miles gets a brilliant idea. 

Bath and Body Works.

People in there, they are all about how they smell. 

The four workers all answer with products they sell, of course, but that’s twelve, and there’s five other people in the store all willing to talk about deodorant. 

“Three more,” Miles mutters to himself, leaving Bath and Body Works. 

It takes a little longer to get the last three, because a lot of the people walking by just ignore him, but he gets two more, and then he spots that Mandy girl from PFLAG, with an older guy that looks an awful lot like her. 

“Hey, Mandy. Hey, Mandy’s… brother?”

“Uh, hello, Miles?” Mandy says, like she’s not entirely sure she means it. “Yes, this is my brother.”

“Hellooo, Mandy’s brother.” Miles puts on his most charming grin. “So, Mandy. Mandy’s brother. You two willing to help me out of a spot of trouble?”

Mandy looks suspicious, but her brother just looks amused. “What kind of trouble?” she asks. 

“Well.” Miles heaves a dramatic sigh. “I made a good friend of mine upset with me a few weeks ago, and he’s sent me on a scavenger hunt. Now, I’ve already done some guerrilla gardening, taken a picture of a purple house, and delivered some milkshakes.” 

“Casey,” Mandy says, all matter-of-factly.

Miles’ smile falters for a second. “Uh, yeah.” He recovers quickly. “But now I’m supposed to survey some customers at Lima’s finest shopping venue about their preferences in hygiene products.”

“Hmm. What kind of products?” Mandy continues looking at Miles like she thinks he’s up to something. 

“Oh, it’s a silly thing,” Miles assures her, though he’s looking at her brother. “I just need to do a voice recording of your favorite deodorant.”

“I don’t think I can help you out with that, Miles,” Mandy says. “Is this about Dave punching you?”

“I am merely seeking to become a better person,” Miles says loftily.

“Oh, this is that guy?” Mandy’s brother asks her. “Now I feel like I’ve got to help him.”

“Great!” Miles preps his phone. “Just when you’re ready.” He pauses. “Leave your phone number, too, in case I have any follow-up questions.”

“Jason, don’t give him your phone number,” Mandy says. “That’s _Miles Brown_. The Cheerios hand out warning cards!”

Jason laughs and then says he just uses whatever scent of Old Spice deodorant is on sale. He does leave his number, though, and Miles figures he’ll give Jason a call in the near future. He seems friendly and Miles does like making a new friend.

Mandy looks horrified at Jason after he leaves his number, and steers him away from Miles, fussing at him the whole time as the two of them disappear around the corner. Miles shakes his head at the two of them, then texts Casey. _u want the voice files or my word good enuf_

The pause before Casey answers is longer than usual, and Miles has this mental image of Casey and Karofsky discussing just how much they feel like putting Miles out, Karofsky probably voting in favor of making Miles send all the files and sweet little Casey probably willing to take him at his word. Maybe.

When the text finally comes, it says, _Just send the 5 best answers._

Miles rolls his eyes, but sorts through the various voice recordings, choosing four different answers. He goes back and forth on sending Jason’s response, but figures if they’re having a little fun at his expense, why can’t he have a little fun, too? Miles sends the recordings to Casey and then waits to hear if he’s finally finished this insane scavenger hunt.

_Is that PFLAG Mandy yelling in the background?_

_shes just saying hi_ Miles texts back. _tell me im done cherry_

_Next one’s a 2-part. Take ten canned goods to the food pantry and while you’re there, sign up for Habitat._

“You have got to be kidding me,” Miles says. “Oh, you have just _got_ to be kidding me.” He sighs and text _better people cherry?_

Casey quickly texts back _Yes. Much better people Miles._

Miles heaves another sign, even if no one’s around to appreciate it this time, and drives next door to the mall to the Meijer, where he gets five cans of corn and five of green beans. He takes a picture of them sitting placidly in the basket, and then drives into downtown Lima, which almost doesn’t deserve to be called a downtown. There’s limited parking anyway, though, and Miles finally finds a space two blocks from the food pantry. 

Weird that a food pantry’s open on Saturday night, he thinks, but then he gets inside and realizes it’s not, just the entryway with a donation bucket. He takes another picture of his corn and green beans in the bucket, and then finds the Habitat for Humanity sign up on the corkboard. He scowls and fills out the volunteer information, then takes what he damn well hopes is the final picture, and sends all three of the most recent pictures off.

_now cherry?_

_Now you can come over and apologize to David again. You’re a better person and I know you’ll do a good job._

“Damn, Cherry? Really?” Miles shakes his head and finds his car again. This little Saturday evening scavenger hunt has not been nearly as much fun as junior prom the night before, but it’s probably costing him more, once he adds in the cost of gas. 

 

III.

“He’s done!” Casey says, showing the last picture to David. “Now he gets to come and apologize, right?”

“He gets to come here and _try_ to apologize,” David says. “I have less faith in his ability to do so than you, Case.”

“But he did all this stuff and didn’t even argue,” Casey insists. “That means he at least wants to try, and that’s something, right? He’s really not all that bad, David. Just partly bad.”

“Well, he didn’t know what the end of the scavenger hunt was,” David points out. “But we’ll see.”

“I’d told him we were going to give him tasks to do, though,” Casey says. “So he probably figured it out. He’s smart, he’s just also not good at behaving.”

David just shrugs and looks back down at the mac ’n’ cheese chart. “Wait until after he’s here to try another one?”

“Do you think we could make him sit quietly and wait while we tabulate the numbers?”

“We are talking about _Brown_ , right?” David laughs. “Has he ever done anything quietly?”

“I guess he probably has to sleep some time,” Casey says. “He’s probably quiet-ish then.”

“I bet he talks in his sleep.”

“Oh, I bet you’re right!” There’s a contrite–sounding knock on the front door then, and Casey says, “Okay, he’s here. What kind of faces should we have?”

“Um. We have to have a certain kind of face?”

“It’s important to present a united front. I read that somewhere. Are we, um. Stern? Or, hmm. Maybe we should go with blank faces.”

“Uh. Sure.”

Casey carefully arranges his face into what he thinks is a passably blank look. “How this?”

David just nods, his own face impressively blank. “That will work.”

“Okay, good,” Casey says, and he opens the front door to a sort of tired-looking Miles Brown. “Miles.”

“Cherry. Shep,” Miles says. “That was a hell of a scavenger hunt the two of you sent me on.”

“It wasn’t a scavenger hunt, Miles. It was a mission to become a better person. Don’t you feel like a better person now?” Casey asks, working very hard to hold on to his blank expression. 

“Sure, Cherry. A lot better. Am I allowed to come in?”

“Vampire now, hmm?” David says from behind Casey. “Can’t come in unless we invite you? Does that mean we can uninvite you, too? I never was sure how that bit of vampiric lore worked.”

“It’s either some kind of ritual or it’s big ropes of garlic,” Casey answers. “Miles isn’t a vampire, but he _is_ a better person, right Miles?” He raises his eyebrows at Miles in hopes that Miles understands that now would be a very good time to try his apology to David. It only takes Miles a second to figure it out.

“Oh, yeah. Shep,” Miles says, turning towards David and managing a tone that does at least sound sincere. “I’m very sorry that I was rude to you and that I said embarrassing things to you in public. I’ll do my best not to be such a jackass in the future.” It sounds a little scripted and probably like he practiced it, but Casey think it’s nice that Miles at least went to some effort to sound like he meant it, which is a big step for Miles. 

Casey looks over at David to see what kind of face he’s making, but David is still doing a great job keeping a blank expression. David nods slowly. “All right.” 

“Oh, good!” Casey says, and he hugs David, just because it’s nice of him to make an effort to accept Miles’ apology. David relaxes a little and that’s good, too. When he’s done hugging David, Casey hugs Miles, too, and tells him, “I’m proud of you, Miles.” Then, because he’s so glad everybody’s not mad at everybody now, and also just because he likes to, Casey hugs David one more time. 

“Cherry, do I really have to build a house?”


	3. 3x31

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pop-Tarts, puffy vests, and pear hips; Campaign of terror; PFLAG, pizza, and all the different ways of coming out; Boy Pretzel or girl Pretzel?; Dancing in all the possible combinations; King and Queen; Fixing Finn's lack

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Playlist for 3x31](http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLF1B46735A7F9C50A)
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> [Prom setlist](http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL20764009C9EF1A56)
> 
>  
> 
> Remember, if you see a link in the text, CLICK ON IT!

The coffee pot is still half-full and the coffee smells fresh, which means Finn isn’t too terribly late waking up. He pours himself a cup and then goes to the pantry to find his Pop-Tarts. The box feels too light, but there’s something rattling around in there, so it might just be that he’s not awake enough to be able to correctly judge the weight of Pop-Tarts. Finn sits down at the kitchen table with his coffee and upends the Pop-Tarts box, dumping the contents onto the kitchen table.

The contents are _not_ Pop-Tarts, though. All that falls out is a folded up piece of paper, which Finn unfolds to read a note scrawled in Puck’s pointy chicken scratch handwriting.

_Dear Finn,_

_You've been good to us, we know. Daily checks on our welfare, a warm kitchen in which to wait. But we needed something else. Something more. I hope one day you can forgive us for leaving you hanging, for leaving you without a tasty breakfast pastry for the morning._

_xoxo,  
the pop-tarts_

Stealing all of Finn’s Pop-Tarts? Uncool. Freaking hilarious note, but Pop-Tart theft is most decidedly uncool, especially because he’d had at least two packs left in there. Who needs to eat four Pop-Tarts for breakfast? Finn sips his coffee and stews about it a little while, because seriously, _four_ Pop-Tarts?

Once Finn’s coffee is done, he goes upstairs to complain to Kurt, because what he really wanted was his Pop-Tarts and now that he’s Pop-Tartless and grumpy, somebody should have to hear about it. He knocks on Kurt’s door, and when he doesn’t get an immediate response, he knocks again, a lot louder. 

“Finn?” comes the very muffled response.

“Kurt?” Finn answers. “Are you buried under something?”

“No,” Kurt says, sounding less muffled, and then the door opens. “I was in the closet. Shut up.”

“I didn’t say anything!” Finn says, but the fact that he’s having to force himself not to laugh probably doesn’t help. 

“You were thinking it.” Kurt rolls his eyes. “ _I_ was thinking it.”

“You can’t hear my thoughts,” Finn protests. “You can’t, right?”

“I’ll never tell.”

“Well, what am I thinking now?”

“Hmm. That you’re hungry.”

Finn blinks at Kurt, because that’s kind of creepy and accurate. “Shit. How’d you know that?”

Kurt shrugs. “Maybe I really can hear your thoughts.”

Now, Finn’s pretty sure Kurt is just kidding and the hungry thing is just a really uncanny coincidence, but on the off chance that Kurt really can hear thoughts, Finn thinks about boobs, because that’ll probably make Kurt stop listening. Or throw him off the trail. Or something.

“Did you need something?”

Finn shakes his head a little to clear his thoughts, not that they were particularly deep thoughts or anything. “Oh, yeah. Your boyfriend ate all my Pop-Tarts.”

“Did he?” Kurt responds. “Are you sure it was him?”

“He left a note.” Finn holds up the note. “Well, ok, the Pop-Tarts left a note, but I’m pretty sure he’s the one who actually wrote it.”

Kurt appears to be reading the note, his lips twitching. “I’m very sorry that your Pop-Tarts left you a ‘Dear Finn’ letter.”

“No, your _boyfriend_ left me a ‘Dear Finn’ letter,” Finn says. “Seriously. Look, that’s his handwriting. He ate all of my Pop-Tarts. There were two packs and he ate them all!”

“So you’re trying to tell me that.” Kurt breaks off and looks away for a moment. “You’re calling my boyfriend a thief _and_ a pig?” he manages to say. He looks like he’s about to start laughing, and Finn glares at him.

“Yes. That’s pretty much it,” Finn says. “He ate all my Pop-Tarts and I came up here to complain about it to you, ’cause. Well, I don’t know why. It just seemed like the thing to do.”

“Because, clearly, I could have helped prevent that while I was asleep?” Kurt asks, still looking like he’s about to laugh. 

Finn glares at Kurt even harder. “Probably. I don’t know how, but I bet you could have.”

“You know what you should do, Finn? You should go look on top of the entertainment center.” Kurt sounds nonchalant, like he’s changing the subject. 

“You know what _you_ should do, Kurt? You should… wait, why? Why should I look up there?” Finn looks at Kurt suspiciously, because it’s hard to know with Kurt, sometimes, exactly what’s going on. 

“It’s merely a suggestion. Something you might find interesting.”

“If this is a trick, I’m coming back with a hose, dude. Water everywhere. Water all over you.” Finn points at Kurt once, just to drive the point home, and then stomps down the stairs to look on top of the entertainment center, where he finds a foil-wrapped pack of Pop-Tarts. He opens the pack carefully to check that they are in fact Pop-Tarts, which they are, and that they’re his brown sugar cinnamon ones, which they also are. In a considerably better mood, Finn goes back upstairs.

“Dude. My Pop-Tarts,” he says, leaning back in Kurt’s door.

“I see you found some.” Kurt looks vaguely smug. 

“The two of you, I swear,” Finn says. “It’s like living with spies or crazy people or crazy spies.”

“Crazy spies still get to wear suits, don’t they?” Kurt asks. 

“Uh, yeah. There’s no point in being a spy if you can’t wear a nice suit. Have you not seen the suits Michael Westen wears?” Finn shakes his head. “They’re really nice. Not, like, Neal Caffrey nice, but it’s way hotter in Miami, so probably wearings vests or whatever under your suit is a bad idea.”

“No, I still haven’t watched your shows,” Kurt replies, shaking his own head. “You know that.”

“You _should_ , though. They’re awesome.”

“I did try watching one of them. Didn’t I?” Kurt shrugs. 

“Which one? Was it the one in New York or the one in Miami?” Finn asks. “I don’t remember which one. Well, either way, it’s all about the suits, I’m telling you. They give you powers or something. That’s probably how you can hear my thoughts.”

“New York,” Kurt says, as if that should have been obvious. “And most of the time I try not to. Hear them, that is.”

“Well, that’s good. You probably wouldn’t like what you heard, dude. Trust me.” Finn shakes his head, ’cause, yeah, that’s an accurate statement. Kurt probably would _not_ be too thrilled.

“Perhaps not.” Kurt nods and then sighs. “I am going—don’t say it—back into the closet again now.”

“Wasn’t gonna say anything,” Finn assures him. “I was just gonna think it really loudly.”

 

About an hour later, Finn has nothing to do, and he’s bored, so he stands in Kurt’s doorway and announces, “I’m bored. Gimme something to do.”

Kurt looks up from staring at the stuff in his drawer. “Oh, hmm.” Kurt looks around his room. “I’m going through clothes, myself.”

“I can help or whatever. I can rearrange piles of things or put stuff in bags,” Finn says. “Just give me something to do before mom comes up with something for me.”

Kurt laughs. “Fine. I guess this is better than going hunting for _mango_.”

“Yeah, what is up with the mango thing? She’s sent me out for it, like, two or three times and she’s never happy with what I bring back.” Finn shakes his head. “One time I brought back the dried stuff, like mango jerky or whatever, and she got really mad at me.”

“Puck and I went searching for fresh mango last week,” Kurt says. “It took two stores. I don’t think mango’s exactly in season right now.”

“And it’s not like they grow mangoes in Ohio or anything,” Finn says. “They have to bring them from… I dunno. What, Mexico or something? They’re not gonna be in great shape by the time they get to Lima. I think her mango standards are just way too high.”

“India, I think.” Kurt looks around the room and points to a pile of clothes on the bed. “Can you take pictures of those?”

Finn looks at the clothes. “Sure. Why?”

“So I can list them on eBay.”

Finn goes to his room and gets his little red camera, then comes back and starts spreading the clothes out. “Hey, you’re not getting rid of this sweater, are you?” he asks, frowning. 

“That one? Yes,” Kurt nods. “White’s already impractical enough here, and it’s dry-clean only, and…” he shrugs. 

Finn has a momentary moment of guilt over the dry-cleaning thing, but Kurt never did mention that shirt, so probably he’s forgotten it by now. “It’s just a really nice sweater. It’s, uh, it looks like it’s really soft.”

“It is.” Kurt looks sort of amused. “I don’t think it would fit you, though.”

“What? No, I don’t mean for me, dude,” Finn says, taking an involuntary step away from the sweater. “Never mind, ok? I’ll just take the damn pictures.”

“Okay.” Kurt gives him a weird look and turns back to his drawer. “I’m going to have to live at the Post Office for a few weeks.”

“Because you can’t find an apartment in New York?”

“No, to ship everything after I list it.” Kurt shakes his head. “At least in theory, assuming it sells.”

“Is this all fancy designer stuff? You’ll probably make a lot of money.”

“Most of it, yes,” Kurt nods. “Some of it’s a few seasons old, though.”

“Yeah, see, that’s why I wear what I wear,” Finn says. “Never goes out of season, dude. It’s timeless or whatever.”

“It could be argued it’s never _in_ season, either. But I suppose your puffy vests will be necessary once you’re in the frozen north.”

“Dude, I hardly ever wear the puffy vests any more. You kept saying stuff about them.”

“You’d better wear them,” Kurt says, oddly bossy about it.

“But you said they’re… what’s that word you used?”

“Warm?” Kurt says almost sharply, turning back to another drawer and rummaging through it.

“Noooo,” Finn says, wondering what Kurt’s problem is. Why’s he so mad about the stupid puffy vests, anyway? “It was something that sounded like it meant fugly, but it wasn’t fugly.”

“Well I suppose sometimes function does have to take precedence over form.” Kurt shrugs, his back still to Finn. 

“You also said they were, uh, ‘tragically midwestern’,” Finn says. “And that they give me pear hips.”

“You’ll still be in the midwest.” Kurt tosses a few shirts towards the bed without turning around. 

“Yeah, I’ll still be in the midwest,” Finn says. “Not everybody gets to go off to New York. But you hate the vests. Why do you want me to wear the vests? And why are you… I dunno. What did I _do_ , dude?”

“Don’t wear them when you come visit?” Kurt suggests, turning around. “I just think you should attempt to not lose any body parts thanks to hypothermia.”

Finn has a fucking ticket voucher to fucking New York City in the bottom of his fucking sock drawer, and a fucking puffy vest isn’t gonna keep parts from falling off. “Fine. I’ll wear my fugly, tragically midwestern vests at my tragically midwestern school, but I won’t bring them with me when I visit you in your magical city of cool awesomeness,” he snaps. “And I’ll try not to freeze to death or have my feet fall off.”

Kurt draws back almost like he’s been slapped. “Excuse me for _worrying_ about you,” he retorts. “I didn’t know that was a fucking crime.”

“Well, don’t. Worry about me, I mean,” Finn says, spreading the next shirt from the pile of eBay–bound clothes out a little too roughly. “I’m a big boy and I can put on a fucking coat if I’m cold. I own gloves and a hat, too.”

“Good!” Kurt narrows his eyes. “I guess you’re just all set, aren’t you!”

“I am, thanks,” Finn says, snapping a quick picture of the shirt and then tossing it to the side. “Totally set.”

“Fine.” Kurt shrugs carelessly, totally at odds with his tone and facial expression. “It’s good you have everything you need without any assistance.”

“Well, it’s good you’re selling all your clothes you don’t need, because they’re out of season and… and… probably everybody in New York would notice that,” Finn says, feeling a little stupid, because really, that’s a terrible comeback. “And maybe _you_ should get a puffy vest, so you don’t lose any body parts.”

“Well, I already _have_ pear hips, so I think I’ll skip that,” Kurt snaps back. 

“Your hips are fine, why do you say shit like that?” Finn says. “And why do you have so many clothes? I’ve taken like forty seven pictures already!”

“I suppose it’s asking too much for you to grasp fashion.” Kurt rolls his eyes. “Why do you care?”

“Because you and Puck are going to New York and I’m going to Wisconsin and it _sucks_ and I hate it!” Finn yells. 

It sort of hangs there for a minute, and Finn thinks maybe he didn’t actually say it out loud, because Kurt hasn’t said anything back yet. Maybe that much time hasn’t passed. Maybe Finn could point out something shiny and Kurt would be distracted, and Finn could run away from Kurt’s room before he says anything back. 

Kurt exhales loudly. “Well. That’s out there, then.”

“Yeah. Yeah. I guess it is.” Finn runs his hand through his hair and silently starts spreading out a pair of pants, snapping pictures. 

“Nothing’s going to change that, Finn,” Kurt says quietly a few minutes later. “But it doesn’t—” He stops and exhales again. 

“Don’t worry about it,” Finn says, waving his hand in Kurt’s direction. “I’m gonna finish taking these pictures. Just, don’t worry about it. It’s fine. It’s fine.” He lays out the next shirt, some striped thing he knows he’s seen Kurt wear a few times, and takes a good picture of it. “Nothing’s going to change that, like you said, so. It’s fine.”

Finn keeps taking pictures of the clothes Kurt throws onto the eBay pile, neither of them talking. When the pile is gone, Kurt turns and makes a strange face. “Thanks,” he says quietly. 

“I’ll bring the cord over so you can upload the pictures,” Finn says, and he leaves Kurt’s room without even looking back over at him. He brings the cord and camera back to Kurt’s room, tossing them both on the bed, and then goes back to his own room, slamming the door behind him. He takes the ticket voucher out of his drawer and lies on his bed, staring at it for a while, before shoving the stupid thing back under his socks and grabbing his laptop. Mafia Wars isn’t high-brow entertainment, but it’s better than nothing.

 

After the early afternoon fiasco, Kurt texts Puck to come pick him up, after all, and at two exactly, Kurt places Finn's camera and cord outside Finn's door before walking down the stairs quietly. He walks to the end of the driveway, leaning against the mailbox while he waits. 

Puck looks at him curiously when he pulls up. "Blue eyes?"

Kurt just shakes his head and climbs in the passenger seat, reaching for Puck's hand and squeezing it tightly. "No one's at your apartment, right?"

"Shouldn't be, nah," Puck shakes his head. "Head there?"

"Please." Kurt rests his head against the window and closes his eyes, sighing. He's still not sure what just happened.

"Burt or Finn?" Puck asks as he parks the Nav in front of his apartment building, and Kurt's lips quirk upwards in spite of himself. 

"Finn," Kurt answers finally as they reach Puck's apartment, and Kurt sighs a little at the sight of all the boxes stacked against the wall. "It's really happening, huh?"

"Yeah." Puck looks around the room, too. "We've lived here since Zeke left, more or less. Going to be weird for Hannah especially, I guess. But her bedroom will be bigger and I think Mom's going to let her have the 'master' bedroom."

"That's good," Kurt says, and he knows he sounds absent-minded at best as he walks into Puck's bedroom. It's so bare, and he squeezes his eyes shut for a minute, picturing how it used to look. His own room won't be his room for much longer, either, and Kurt keeps his eyes mostly shut as he slowly removes his clothes. "Just hold me, baby."

"Shh. Okay." Puck wraps his arms around Kurt, pulling him into a tight embrace and kissing Kurt's shoulders softly before pulling away to take off his own clothes. Kurt is tugged down onto the air mattress, then, and he tries to relax against Puck's chest. "Tell me?" Puck asks. 

"I don't even _know_ ," Kurt says, frustrated. "Finn was all 'I'm bored' and so he was taking pictures of the clothes I'm selling, and then somehow we were yelling about puffy vests and he said—" Kurt hiccups and he realizes he's crying quietly all over Puck's chest. "He was so _mean_ , baby, about New York and Wisconsin and throwing things I've said back in my face and I just." He stops and takes a deep breath. "I shouldn't worry about him, apparently, and he can get everything he needs on his own, except that three weeks ago, he didn't even know what a _shower caddy_ was!"

Puck's hands are running slowly through Kurt's hair, petting it, and Kurt sighs, moving his head into the touch. "Shh, K. I've got you."

"You do," Kurt agrees, nodding slightly. "And he just kept _needling_ me and I kept needling right back, and he said." Kurt exhales. "He said 'Because you and Puck are going to New York and I'm going to Wisconsin and it sucks and I hate it!"

Puck's hands still and Kurt finds himself pulled even more tightly against Puck. "What did you say?" Puck asks softly. 

"I said." Kurt giggles, even though there's nothing all that funny or amusing about it. "I said 'Well. That's out there, then.' and then I said something about nothing changing that. So then Finn went all 'no, no, it's fine' and kept saying it was _fine_ over and over, like by repeating it enough, it would magically _make_ it fine or change something or take away all the comments on pear hips."

"Pear hips?" Puck sounds confused, and Kurt just shakes his head. 

"Nevermind." Kurt sighs. "I just." Kurt tightens his fist in the sheets covering the two of them. "It's not like fighting about it is going to help."

"No," Puck agrees, his hand on Kurt's jaw. "What do you want, K?"

"I want you to help me forget for a little while."

"That I can do," Puck answers, and he tilts Kurt's face upwards, bringing their lips together briefly. "That I can definitely do."

 

The rest of Finn’s day is an unbroken stream of boringness and feeling sorry for himself, interrupted only by his mom coming up to his room to go on about some kind of scanner thingy they’re going to have to use after they find out if the baby’s a girl Pretzel or a boy Pretzel. The high point of Finn’s day is taking a shower, which is a pretty crappy high point for a day, and then he sits out on the porch to wait for Puck and Kurt to come pick him up, even though he sort of half–suspects they might not even show up, because he almost tripped over his camera coming out of his room, and probably Kurt’s mad at him, and Finn’ll just have to sit out on the porch forever.

At 6:45, the Nav pulls into the driveway, and they don’t honk or roll down a window or anything, but at least they _stop_ , which is something. Finn can see Puck in the driver’s seat as he opens the back door to climb in. Kurt’s sitting in the front passenger seat with his eyes closed, like Finn’s just too disappointing to even look at, so Finn slouches down in his seat without really saying anything more than “Hey” to Puck.

Puck nods a little in response, and backs out of the driveway. The trip over to Rachel’s is silent and awful, and seems to take about five times longer than it should. Finn’s not sure if he’s supposed to apologize, or even what he did wrong, other than apparently not having pear hips or wanting to wear puffy vests, or maybe daring to talk about them going to New York and him going to Wisconsin, because apparently that’s _news_ or something. He wishes he could just say fuck it and grab Kurt and hug him, but probably that would just make everything worse. Why is everything so _stupid_?

Hiram answers the door, greeting them enthusiastically before allowing them to go down to the basement. Finn follows behind Puck and Kurt as they walk down the hall and then down the basement stairs, one of Puck’s arms around Kurt until they’re almost at the bottom of the stairs. 

“Oh, good, you’re here!” Rachel says brightly as soon as she sees Finn. “Isn’t today just beautiful? I was telling Mike perhaps we should go down to the park, since it’s just a few blocks! What do you think, Finn?”

“Uh, yeah, whatever Mike thinks,” Finn says, shrugging. 

“Are you feeling all right? You know, I have some immune–system boosting herbal tea and supplements. Maybe everyone should be on a similar regimen until we return from Nationals.”

Finn just stares at Rachel, because seriously, the best part of breaking up with Rachel is not having to talk about immune–boosting supplements. Instead, he turns to Mike. “What do you think, Mike? Here or there?”

Mike shrugs. “There’s a couple of open grassy spaces, so yeah, that could work pretty well. And we did want to rehearse in plenty of different venues.”

“Yeah, ok, we can do that,” Finn says. “We can walk over and it’ll give us about an hour before it’s too dark.”

“Plus, it’s like combining rehearsal with those workouts you are having us do!” Rachel says. “Right?”

“Uhh.” Finn looks at Rachel, and she’s making that scary–eyed face she’s always made when she’s trying to hook up with him again. Oh, just great. “Yeah, I’m not sure a walk to the park is like that.”

“Oh.” Rachel deflates a little. “It can’t hurt, though!” She turns to address the rest of the room. “Come on, everyone, we’re going to the park!”

Everybody gathers up whatever jackets or sweater thingies they brought, and Brittany puts her shoes back on, and then they all head back up stairs and walk to the park. It doesn’t take long to get there and it _is_ actually pretty nice to be practicing outside in the good weather for a change. Kurt acts like everything is perfectly normal, which probably anybody who isn’t Puck or Finn would just be willing to go along with, and Puck jokes around a little less than normal, but nobody else seems to notice.

The rehearsal is great, really great. They could do the routine with their eyes closed at this point, and Finn honestly expects Mike will suggest it sometime in the next few rehearsals. They’re the best they’ve ever been, and Finn wishes he could be happier about it than he is. It’s not that he’s any less excited about Nationals or wanting to kick any less ass, but he’s just got a lot of different stuff in his head and it makes it harder to get too stoked about anything.

After rehearsal, the three of them get back into the Nav and drive home, all of them sitting silently and Kurt looking more and more miserable. That’s probably fair, though, because Finn _feels_ more and more miserable. He’s not sure why they keep getting so mad at each other, but at least there’s the small mercy of the Nav not containing any pop, because while he’s pretty sure Kurt wouldn’t throw a drink in his car, Finn’s not entirely willing to bet on it.

 

Kurt tangles his fingers with Puck’s once they get home and walk inside, and they head straight for the kitchen. Kurt pulls out three cans of pop and hands one to Puck before setting the other one silently on the table, closer to Finn than Kurt, but not exactly in front of Finn either. Finn reaches for his can and opens it, his eyes a cross between sad and extremely pitiful. 

Kurt tugs Puck with him into the living room and waits until Puck sits down before handing him the remote and then curling up on top of him, his head resting on Puck’s thigh and his legs bent behind him. Finn sits down on the other end of the sofa, at Kurt’s feet. Puck does turn the TV on, flipping through the channels, and Kurt smiles slightly when Puck finally stops on a ‘Mythbusters’ rerun that appears to be about duct tape. 

About ten minutes later, Kurt almost jumps when Finn’s hands land tentatively on his feet. Finn deliberately takes Kurt’s feet and places them in his lap, resting one of his hands on top of Kurt’s ankle. Kurt exhales softly and traces a slow circle on Puck’s thigh, and Puck’s hand squeezes his shoulder gently. 

Kurt lets his eyes partially close as a few more minutes pass, because duct tape isn’t particularly enthralling and it’s already been a long day, and then Finn’s thumb starts stroking along his arch, luckily not lightly, because Kurt doesn’t feel like being tickled at the moment. 

The credits roll and Puck starts channel surfing again for a few minutes before apparently giving up and the TV clicks off. Puck’s fingers card through Kurt’s hair and Kurt just closes his eyes completely. 

“Boys. Hey, boys.”

Kurt frowns and wonders why his dad is in his bedroom until he realizes he’s not actually lying on his bed and one of his feet is really cold. “Dad?” he murmurs. 

“You guys all fell asleep on the sofa,” Burt says. “Why don’t you go up to your beds?”

“Oh.” Kurt shakes his head slightly and realizes that the reason his other foot is warm is because of the hand–shaped blanket of Finn’s palm, and he’d probably feel colder if it wasn’t for Puck’s hand pressed along his head, too. “Right. What time is it?”

“Around midnight. Didn’t want to wake you earlier, because you guys looked so, uh, comfortable, but you’ve got school in the morning.” Burt sounds amused, if somewhat confused. 

Kurt nods. “Okay.” He reaches up and takes Puck’s hand, squeezing it, and wiggles his foot experimentally. “Puck. Finn. Wake up.”

“Mmm?” Puck responds. 

“Fell asleep on the couch. Wake up.”

“Mmmwake.”

“Uh-huh,” Kurt nods, fighting a laugh. “Okay. Finn. Finn.”

Finn’s grip tightens on Kurt’s foot. “Hmm? What?”

“Wake up.”

“Why am I in your room?” Finn mumbles. 

“We’re in the living room still,” Kurt explains. “We fell asleep.”

“Oh.” There’s a long pause before Finn says, “I have your feet.”

“Technically, just the one foot.”

Puck chuckles, which makes Kurt’s head bounce slightly, and moves his fingers through Kurt’s hair again. “That’s one way to look at it.”

“Do you need it back?” Finn asks, still sounding sleepy and disoriented. 

“Only for walking, running, dancing, and so forth,” Kurt replies, amused. 

“Oh, ok, yeah,” Finn says, then he shakes his head a little. “Oh, wait. Yeah, sorry, Kurt.” He releases Kurt’s foot suddenly, like he finally realized he was actually holding it in his hand. 

Puck laughs again for a second, and it strikes Kurt that his dad must be really amused or really confused, or a lot of both. Burt just shakes his head, though.

“You guys are kinda weird, you know that?” With that, he leaves the room, presumably to go upstairs to bed with Carole. 

“Yep, I knew that,” Puck says anyway. Kurt shakes his head and swings his legs off Finn’s lap and sits up. 

“So, are we, uh, ok?” Finn asks.

Kurt sighs, because it’s not like he understands what got Finn upset in the first place—a _sweater_ , really?—and it’s also not like anything can change the facts of the matter. He nods slowly. “We’re okay.”

“Ok, cool,” Finn says, exhaling loudly and looking relieved. 

 

The weather is still great on Monday morning when Finn gets up for school, he starts the morning out with a fresh box of Pop-Tarts, and he doesn’t even catch the red light on the way in. Kurt’s not mad at him any more, even if Finn still has no clue what they were fighting about to begin with, and all of this gives Finn a feeling of everything being right and good in the universe. This should have been his first clue that the week was actually going to rapidly roll downhill until it becomes a basket full of drama, drama, drama.

It starts with the stupid prom posters. Finn probably shouldn’t be as surprised as he is when he sees what’s written all over Kurt and Puck’s posters, but somehow he’d convinced himself that since they’ve managed to avoid any vandalism so far, maybe it wasn’t going to happen. The first poster in the hallway closest to Finn’s locker has “fag” written on it in black magic marker. The poster between his locker and the history classroom, the one right by the water fountain, takes it to a higher level with “fags” instead, which is technically more accurate. The one right outside the history classroom, however, is where it gets super creative; that one says “prom phags.” Finn isn’t sure whether to be royally pissed or just impressed by the spelling choice. 

Maybe a little of both.

He flings his backpack onto the ground beside his seat and fistbumps Sam, Britt, and then Puck before sitting down. “So, nice additions to the posters, huh?”

“Someone needs to tell them that ‘ph’ and ‘p’ don’t actually allit-whatever,” Puck snorts. “Tomorrow’ll be the cartoon dicks.”

“Or boobs. There’s always boobs, dude,” Finn says. “It’s tradition or whatever.”

“Couldn’t they at least be considerate enough to draw something we’d theoretically be interested in?”

“Maybe it’s not ’cause they think you like it. Maybe it’s more of a suggestion that you should invest in a pair for yourself,” Finn says. 

Puck looks down at his chest and shakes his head. “Not happening.”

“Yeah, I didn’t rock that look on the posters last year, so I’m thinking I couldn’t pull that off in real life, either,” Finn says. “Still, they messed up your nice posters and I think I should find somebody to punch.”

“Okay.” Puck shrugs. “And – does that mean Lady Coco’s flat-chested? Because, dude, not going to be quite as convincing that way.”

“Because I’d definitely be the most convincing drag queen ever and the boobs are the only thing that’ll make the difference,” Finn says. 

“Pretty much,” Puck nods, downing the rest of his coffee. “Can you put up some new posters during your free period, Mr. Campaign Manager?”

“Yeah, and I’ll take down the ones that are written on. I might also go around the school with one and compare handwriting until I figure out who wrote on them,” Finn says. “That might take up most of the afternoon.”

Puck snorts back a laugh. “Yeah, have fun. Start with Trilby and his douchebag friends.”

“For the punching or the handwriting comparison?”

“Yes?” Puck grins. “You might actually improve Trilby’s looks, though.”

“Hard to make ’em worse, dude,” Finn says. “Dude fell out of the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down. Also, his girlfriend’s mean.”

Brittany leans in and whispers, like it’s some sort of important state secret or something, “She always has to be on the bottom of the pyramid. She has weak ankles, too.”

“Hey, there we go. Aim for her ankles. Time-honored tradition of taking out the competition.”

“ _Dude!_ I’m not hitting the girlfriend,” Finn says. 

“Worked for those figure skaters,” Puck shrugs. “Think I can get away with it? She is _my_ competition, after all.”

“You should dress in disguise if you’re going to do that,” Brittany says. “That way she can’t identify you in the line-up. You should also have an alibi.”

“You people are _strange_ ,” Sam finally breaks in, shaking his head. 

 

Finn doesn’t manage to find the person who wrote on the posters before fourth period, but he does skip a class and replace all the vandalized posters with new ones. He ends up running a little late and just barely making into the choir room as the bell for fourth period is ringing. Everybody else is already in the room, and all the girls, except for Santana, are all clustered around Rachel, who is sitting right in the center of the middle row, crying dramatically.

“I can’t believe it,” she’s saying in a voice that’s meant to carry, for all that she’s acting like she’s confiding in the other four. “I mean, of _course_ an opportunity like that! He can’t pass that up. _Mamma Mia!_ ”

Brittany turns to Quinn. “Is Rachel Italian? I thought she was Jewish?”

“Well, you can be Italian and Jewish, Britt,” Quinn says, “but _Mamma Mia!_ is a musical.”

“Oh.” Brittany looks disappointed. “Italian would have been more exciting.”

“There’s no way he can come?” Tina says sympathetically. “A later flight?”

Rachel shakes her head, pulling a gold–star embroidered handkerchief from her backpack and blowing her nose theatrically. “He’s just barely making ends meet. You know how hard it is to break into the business.”

“What’s happening over there?” Finn asks Kurt, who is watching Rachel’s performance with a little smirk on his face. 

“Rachel’s prom date can’t make it back to Lima. It’s very devastating,” Kurt explains in a low voice. 

“Oh, was she importing?” Finn asks. 

“Same one as last year,” Puck says from the other side of Kurt. 

Finn doesn’t even bother trying not to laugh. “Seriously? St. James? Again?”

“I’m pretty sure she was hoping you’d get jealous again,” Kurt continues. “Though why she thinks getting you ejected from your senior prom would make you want to date her again, I’m not sure?”

“I’ve stopped even trying to figure out how she thinks,” Finn says. “It is _so_ not ever gonna be my problem again.”

“Well, she’s simply devastated, as you can see.” Kurt looks more amused by the second. “Tragically, she’s unsure if she’ll be able to find another date so close to the actual event.”

“You could get her one from the gay center,” Finn suggests. 

Puck starts to laugh. “Hell, why not just get Brown?”

“He’d probably do it. I think he’d do anything,” Finn says. “Like, literally anything.”

“Does he have to eat with us, then?” Kurt wrinkles his nose. “She could meet him here. Right?”

“Yeah, that could work. Wait, we weren’t planning on feeding Jesse, right? ’Cause he’s not allowed in our house,” Finn says, scowling over at Rachel. “She can’t just spring Jesse on me at my own house. It’s _my_ house.”

“You _have_ met Rachel, right? Pretty sure she was going to.” Puck shakes his head. 

“Welcome to prom week!” Schue says as he walks in, which sets Rachel off a fresh jag of artfully produced tears. “Who has a song about royalty for us?”

“I do!” Tina springs up from her seat. “I’m going to sing ‘Queen of Hearts’.”

_Playing with the queen of hearts  
Knowin' it ain't really smart  
The joker ain't the only fool  
Who'll do anything for you_

Tina does a really good job and looks like she has a fun time singing it. Rachel has a miraculous recovery from her broken heart over Jesse and volunteers to sing once Tina is done. He knows before she even announces what she’s singing that she’ll be singing a Broadway song, because she’s wearing the Broadway face. 

“I’ll be doing ‘They Live in You’ from the stage production of _The Lion King_!”

_They're watching over  
Everything we see  
In every creature  
In every star  
In your reflection  
They live in you_

He’s pretty sure that song isn’t written for Rachel’s vocal range, and he can’t help but mentally picture her in that stupid lion mane from Halloween, which actually makes the song a lot more bearable. Mr. Schue makes a weird face at Rachel, like maybe he’s disappointed in her song choice or something, but then he just asks for the next volunteer.

“I’ll go,” Finn offers. “I’m singing ‘American Pie’, but don’t worry, I made it _way_ shorter than normal.” 

Finn sings his song, which is in fact way shorter than the normal version, and everybody claps, and he sits down again. Schue announces that there’s time for one more person to go, and Brittany volunteers to go.

“I’m singing about all the Kings and Queens,” she says, and it turns out that she really is, starting with the first King of England and singing all the way through a whole bunch of guys named Henry, Edward, and George, until she finally gets to the current Queen of England. 

“Well, that definitely fulfills the requirements of the assignment,” Mr. Schue says at the end, laughing. “Great job, guys. See you Thursday!”

 

Finn’s in the lunch line, trying to decide between something that looks vaguely chickenish and something that might be taco salad and might be some kind of Chinese food, when he realizes that Trilby, the douche baseball player running for prom king, is three people behind him in line and spouting off about something he heard that morning on talk radio. 

“Like Boortz says, we need to get rid of all the illegals.” There’s a pause and a high-pitched giggle, probably the girlfriend. “Yeah, too bad my ‘competition’ isn’t illegal, right?” He laughs. “Lopez for prom king. I guess that she’s more manly than the fags though.”

Well, Finn did tell Puck that he was looking for somebody to punch today, so he turns to Trilby, lunch tray still in hand, and says, “You wanna repeat that, jackass?”

Trilby looks over at his girlfriend, then behind him at his couple of friends, who are slowly backing up. Come to think of it, the guy in the back might be that kid that Finn punched a couple weeks ago. It’s hard to tell, though, because they sort of all blend together when Finn’s borderline rage blacking-out. He raises the tray just a little, not so much that it’s exactly brandishing it, just so Trilby and his buddies know that Finn _has_ the tray and is ready to use it if it turns out to be necessary.

“Uh.” Trilby says. “Um. No.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Finn says, conversationally. “Also, if you write on my brother’s posters again, I’m gonna break all your fingers off one at a time, and then I’m gonna mail them to your girlfriend.” He gives Trilby a big smile. “Enjoy your lunch!”

Trilby blanches, but he manages to shake his head. “I dunno anything about writing on posters, dude!”

“Then tell your buddies the same thing about the fingers,” Finn says. “But either way, I’m mailing them to _your_ girlfriend.”

The girlfriend looks horrified. “Johnny, you know I can’t stand the sight of blood! I fainted just walking past the gym while they were doing the blood drive!”

“And that right there is why she’s on the bottom of the pyramid,” Finn says, turning back towards the food. Yeah, that’s definitely taco salad. 

The rest of the day is uneventful and the weather stays beautiful, so Finn walks over to Brittany’s again for glee rehearsal. Rachel keeps throwing him some kind of look that he thinks is supposed to be seductive or alluring or whatever, but since she keeps interrupting it with another round of crying about Jesse and prom, it’s a little hard to tell for sure or to actually give a crap. Either way, rehearsal goes great. They’re ready.

“Coming with?” Puck asks as they walk out of Brittany’s house. 

“Yeah, that’s cool,” Finn says. “Still a little cold after dark and all that.”

“Also the werewolves and vampires of Lima. No, wait, the hellmouth’s in Cleveland.” Kurt shrugs. 

“Not cool, dude,” Finn says, shivering. “There could be _things_ out there. Don’t mock.”

“It’s distinctly unlikely, however,” Kurt says, unlocking the Nav and climbing in. “Besides, I think some of our classmates are ugly enough to be werewolves. Or were-something ugly.”

“Were-jackasses,” Finn agrees. “That Trilby douchebag.”

“He do anything else?” Puck asks, not sounding particularly surprised or troubled. 

“Oh, you guys don’t need to worry about him,” Finn says, waving his hand. “It’s all cool.”

“What did you do _now_?” Kurt asks. 

“What? I didn’t do anything!” Finn doesn’t even have to feel bad, because it’s not a lie. He didn’t _do_ anything. 

“Okay, what did you not do now?”

“I didn’t not do… no, wait. I didn’t. Ok, that’s just confusing,” Finn says. “All I did was tell him to knock it off with the posters.”

“In a very calm and polite voice, saying please?” Kurt sounds very amused. 

“Hey, I was totally calm,” Finn says. “Didn’t even raise my voice. It was all, like, conversational or whatever.”

“Uh-huh. Sure, dude.” Puck laughs. “What version would Trilby give?”

“Unless he’s a liar, which yeah it’s totally possible he is, he’ll tell you I didn’t raise my voice,” Finn says. “I didn’t have to. I just appealed to his, uh, whatever it is. Better nature.”

“Does he _have_ a better nature?” Kurt asks as they get back home. 

“If he didn’t before, I’m pretty sure he does now,” Finn says.

“Finn Hudson, Polite Vigilante.”

“I am very polite,” Finn agrees. 

“I notice you don’t dispute the vigilante part,” Kurt says. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, dude.”

Puck laughs as they walk into the house and towards the kitchen. “Yeah, sure you don’t. You have some kind of weird senioritis, man.”

“I’m just trying to make the world a better place,” Finn says in his most sincere voice. “Not my fault people wanna get in the way of that.”

 

“Hey, Kurt.”

Kurt looks over, unsurprised to see Mercedes miraculously appear as he leaves his first period class. “Hello, ’Cedes.” It’s not every day that she decides to walk part of the way between Kurt’s first and second period classes, but it’s gotten more and more frequent since it started a bit before spring break. “You’re looking fabulous today.”

“Thank you.” She beams. “You look a bit understated, boo.”

“You think so?” Kurt asks. “I thought the tie added a nice splash of color.” And if he had other motivations for wearing a tie, well. That was his business, and Puck’s. “Not to mention the hat.”

“Oh, I guess so,” Mercedes agrees easily. “Kurt, I don’t know what to do.”

“What’s wrong?” Kurt stops at his locker and looks at her carefully. 

“I don’t know what to do!” Mercedes almost wails. “It’s the first of May. I have to tell one of my schools _today_ that I’m coming, and turn down the others!”

“I thought you got in to both of your top choices?”

“Well, yeah, I told the others no already,” Mercedes admits sheepishly. “But how do I pick between Spelman and Agnes Scott, Kurt?”

“Hmm.” Kurt shrugs slightly, because this sort of dilemma wasn’t one he or Puck or Finn had had. Having one clear first choice makes it much easier. “They’re both in Atlanta, yes?”

“Yeah, they both are.”

“Well, do you like one part of the city better than another? I freely admit I initially was more attracted to Marymount over Pace because, well. Upper East Side over Lower Manhattan.” Kurt shrugs again. “Or, I suppose I should ask, does one have a better department than another?”

“Not really, at least on majors,” Mercedes answers, frowning deeply. “And well.” She does stop and appear to think. “Spelman’s on MARTA, at least.”

“You’re taking your car or not?”

“Not at first,” Mercedes says. “Dad says we’ll see after the first semester or the first year or whatever, but he doesn’t want me driving all my friends around for free.”

“I have _no_ idea what that’s like.”

Mercedes giggles. “I guess you would. You’ll have fun driving the Nav around New York.”

“Oh, I’m not taking it,” Kurt says quickly, shutting his locker. “The cost of monthly parking is far too high. I managed to get scholarships but they don’t give out scholarships for parking.” Of course, he’d decided about the Nav before the financial aid information ever arrived, but they hadn’t mentioned to anyone about selling it, yet, either. Kurt pauses midstep, because he probably should mention it to his dad relatively soon, then continues. 

“Oh my god, are you serious?” Mercedes looks appalled. “You’re not taking the Nav? How are you going to get around?”

“Subway and bus.” Kurt shrugs. “It’s what I did in March, ’Cedes. It’s relatively uncomplicated.”

Mercedes heaves a sigh. “I just don’t know about the bus system in Atlanta.”

“Well, there’s part of your answer, then,” Kurt suggests. “You have until the last truck leaves the Post Office, right?”

“Yeah, I’m going there after school. Mama and Dad said it didn’t matter either way to them. My financial aid is about the same in the end, though I got more actual aid from Agnes Scott and an academic scholarship from Spelman.”

“Hmm.” Kurt gives Mercedes a quick hug, because she seems to need it. “You’ll make the right choice, ’Cedes. I’ve got to run to physics now, but I’ll see you fourth.” He waves as he turns down the correct hallway and sighs. They’ll never be the friends they were sophomore year, for all that Mercedes seems to think they can ignore the past two years. 

 

“Pizza,” Kurt says to Finn, sounding distracted, as they finish up rehearsal during fourth period. 

“Already on it,” Finn says. He didn’t need the reminder, but it’s nice of Kurt and all, so he doesn’t _say_ he didn’t need the reminder. As they leave the choir room, Kurt and Puck turn one way, toward the PFLAG room, and Finn turns the other way, to go to the front of the school and meet the pizza guy. It’s a pretty big stack of pizzas, and after Finn signs the receipt, he takes a minute to decide whether or not to make a second trip, but McKinley’s not the kind of place where it’s safe to just leave pizzas lying around. Somehow, he manages to stack all fifteen boxes on top of each other and walk very slowly down the hall to PFLAG.

“Freaking pizzas coming through,” he yells through the doorway, and everybody clears out of the way like they know what’s good for them. Finn manages to set the whole wobbling stack of pizza boxes onto the table. He opens the top box and looks inside, then brings it over to Casey and hands it to him. “Here. This one’s yours, but you’ve gotta let Karofsky have at least one slice.”

Karofsky looks like he’s trying not to laugh, honestly, at the idea of only having one piece of pizza. “Think you can spare two, Case?”

Casey clutches the pizza box to his chest. “Finn only said I had to give you one, but you can watch me eat the other ones really slowly. Like a pizza reality show.”

“I don’t think that’ll get high ratings.” Karofsky shakes his head slowly. 

“Well, fine. You can eat the rest of it and I’ll eat one slice, then.” Casey nods his head once like the matter is settled. “Higher ratings.”

Finn shakes his head at how completely ridiculous those two are, because seriously? The flirting’s getting kind of out of hand and is almost painful to watch at this point, since it doesn’t seem like anybody’s making any kind of forward movement here. It’s a little sad, but other people’s love dramas are just going to have to take a back seat to the more important matters of pizza and PFLAG meeting stuff. Finn helps himself to two slices of pepperoni pizza and sits down next to Puck. 

“Dude, do you know why Rachel keeps giving me the evil eye?” Finn asks Puck. “I swear, she’s been glaring at me since I walked in with these pizzas.”

“I thought it was just me.” Puck smirks and steals one of Finn’s slices of pizza. Finn slaps at him, but doesn’t try to take it back. “Thanks, by the way. Anyway, I told her that if she really wanted a prom date, she should ask Brown.” Puck nods in Brown’s direction. “I also pointed out that Quinn didn’t have a date, as far as anyone knew.”

“Oh, still the prom drama? I figured it was because I didn’t bring in any vegan pizza,” Finn says. “You think Brown would go for it? I mean, I know he’s got a ‘love all the people’ thing or whatever, but I don’t know that Rachel counts as people when she’s acting like that.”

“I think I wouldn’t feel sorry for either of them. Also, I think vegan pizza is an oxymoron.” Puck looks over at Kurt, who’s talking to Tina about something. “Go get K a piece or two, would you?”

“Sure, you want another pepperoni for you?”

Puck grins. “Unless you want me to steal more of yours, yeah.”

Finn hands his plate to Puck. “Here, I’ll just get more for me while I’m up there.”

“It’s like you’re giving me the shirt off your back, dude.”

“Yeeah, you guys already tried that one and let’s not do that again,” Finn says, standing up and walking over to the table to get two more slices of pepperoni for himself and one pepperoni, one veggie for Kurt. By the time Finn gets back to his seat, Kurt’s sitting on the other side of Puck. 

“Here’s your pizza,” Finn says, handing over the plate. 

“Oh, thank you, darling,” Kurt replies, taking the pizza and immediately biting into the pepperoni slice. Finn looks at Puck and rolls his eyes at the ‘darling’, because Kurt’s really been on some kind of pet name kick with everybody lately or something. Finn can’t quite tell if Kurt’s being a smartass or if this is somehow part of his prom campaign. 

Puck just shrugs and grins again, though, turning back to his pizza. 

“All right,” Kurt raises his voice after finishing one slice of pizza. “Let’s go around and do introductions. We’re going to talk about coming out today, which I mention ahead of introductions since sometimes that’s like… coming out again. Each time.” Kurt frowns a little bit. “For those of you that are straight, try to think a little bit about what it would be like if you needed to assert that repeatedly, or each time you met a new person. So. I’m Kurt. And yes, I am gay.”

“Puck.” Puck sort of waves his hand to the side, like he can’t be bothered to say anything else. Finn didn’t figure this would be the meeting where Puck made some kind of big announcement, but he feels bad that after Kurt’s introduction thingy that Puck had to be the first to go, and didn’t even assert or whatever.

Then it’s Finn’s turn, and the funny thing is, Finn’s not so sure he feels like asserting anything either, come to think of it, so he just says, “Finn,” and does some variation of Puck’s wave thing. It worked for Puck, so why not?

The introductions go around the rest of the room, and everybody still seems to be just as gay, straight, ‘love all the people’, or whatever else as they were at the last meeting. 

“One thing I want to state at the outset,” Kurt says after introductions are finished, “is that coming out isn’t necessarily a one-time thing. Sometimes you will meet new people, and at times, you will have to come out to them. Also, coming out is an _individual decision_. As always, what we talk about in this room stays in this room.” He looks around the room for a minute, narrowing his eyes a few times when his glance passes over Brown, Mercedes, and then one of the A/V kids. “So. What thoughts and feelings do you have when someone talks about ‘coming out’?”

“That it’s something I would have liked to do on my own time,” Santana says. “I mean, yeah. Everyone in glee club knew, and in here, but I wasn’t so sure I wanted to be a poster child.”

“Right,” Kurt nods. “Which brings up another good point. For those of you that watched _Milk_ , you’re familiar with a school of thought that suggests all LGBTQI individuals should come out to their family, friends, and co-workers or fellow students, because of the change that such coming out engenders. I don’t think Harvey Milk, for instance, meant for his stance to be applied to high school students. We are effectively trapped here, on some level. Also, the most important reason to come out should always be for _yourself_. There are benefits and there are risks, and there’s no ‘right way’ or ‘wrong way’ to do it.”

That’s not the same spiel about coming out that Kurt’s always given, but Finn thinks it’s probably the better one, for as much as he knows about it, anyway. As much as it sucks for Puck and Kurt sometimes, Finn can’t see how coming out would have made the year a whole lot better for Puck, and with the school board stuff, probably would have made it worse. It sucks that it’s that way, but the fact is, it _is_ that way. Sometimes it’s just better not to tell people and sometimes it’s better to just tell some people and not all of them. There’s also probably plenty of people who don’t even have it all figured out yet, Finn thinks, and it would be bad if somebody else kept telling them they had to announce or assert something.

“It’s tiring to think about, though,” Santana responds again. “Every time I meet someone new, for the rest of my life, I’m going to have to come out, unless I’m meeting them with my girlfriend right next to me or wearing some kind of rainbow on my shirt.”

Finn hadn’t really thought about that, people having to come out over and over. He just figured the once, but maybe it’s different for somebody like Kurt than somebody like Santana, though maybe not. Why would she have to keep coming out, though? Who’s she going to have to tell, other than maybe guys who hit on her or girls she wants to date? And what about people who are bi or whatever? Do they have to tell the girls they go out with that they like guys, too, or do they not? Finn really had no idea this was so complicated. 

“Coming out to people you meet’s different, though, isn’t it?” someone asks. “I thought coming out meant, like, your family and stuff.”

“Coming out just means telling people,” says the ‘Wears Lipstick’ girl. “I came out to my mom. I also came out to my friends. I came out _here_ too. It’s like…” She pauses for a half a beat. “Circle. It’s like circles inside of circles, and you can start with the inside circle, which is your parents or whoever, and work your way out, or you could start with the really big circle and work your way in.”

“I don’t know, I think the inside circle is yourself,” Karofsky says. “You gotta admit it to yourself first. And then after that, yeah, you have family and friends and whatever. I think family’s sort of terrifying, though. Your friends at least chose you at some point. Your family, you know, you like each other, hopefully, but maybe you don’t understand each other, and you’re just kinda… stuck. So it’s a lot scarier.”

“Sometimes it’s scary and you’re stuck and it goes really, really, _really_ badly, too,” Casey adds. “That’s why, you know, you’ve gotta find _somebody_. Just somebody that you can talk to, because it’s not always going to go well when people find out. It’s just not.”

“The person you talk to doesn’t have to be someone you know face to face, either. I know we’ve talked about various hotlines and internet chats and forums. All of those are viable options.”

“There’s a different kind of coming out, too,” Taylor says. “I mean, it’s a little different for me than some of you, but doctors and nurses and people like that. It’s still important for them to have all the information, I think.”

“That’s a good point,” Kurt agrees. He doesn’t look over at Puck, but he makes a little almost–movement in Puck’s direction like he’d like to look at him. Finn bets it’s because of the swab thing. He’s still traumatized about that, especially since he read on the internet that some places don’t even do the swab thing any more, and he got swabbed when he didn’t even have to! “In fact, it can be difficult to get the appropriate testing unless you’re upfront with your healthcare professional. The standard of care is not to do a complete STI screen on males unless there is sexual contact with one or more other males. For the record, I think that’s a ridiculous recommendation, but again, if your healthcare provider doesn’t know your sexual history, you may not be treated appropriately.” 

It’s weird that doctors don’t just have that same questionnaire as the Red Cross, because then they’d know exactly what to test everybody for without anybody having to make any sort of declaration or something. A nice tidy little form–thing would be just awesome. Those should be standard or something, Finn’s pretty sure. Forms with check boxes. 

“So what would you tell someone here at McKinley, if they were thinking about coming out?” Alicia asks. “Coming out at school, I mean, not at home.”

“I suppose I’d ask them first why they were considering coming out,” Kurt says slowly. “And I’d be remiss not to mention the risks here. Especially right now. But if someone wants to come out for themselves, not as a statement, and they understand the risks, who am I, or anyone, to tell them not to do so? It’s the flip side of what happened to Santana – we can’t force people out of closets nor to stay in them.” He stops and shrugs. “I would never want to discourage anyone from coming out, if they’re doing it for themselves and not for anyone else or a perceived political cause. But I think as teenagers, and given the climate we’re in at the moment, I would encourage anyone to be very, very sure that that was the case. As Santana said, it’s a process, something you do every time you meet someone new. And just because you’re out one place doesn’t mean you have to be somewhere else. You need to think about your physical safety, your emotional support, and even your financial support.”

“My mom was really cool about it,” ‘Wears Lipstick’ says. “She even told my dad and my grandparents so I didn’t have to go through that all over again. That made it so much easier, knowing that they knew and I didn’t have to be the one to tell them.”

“Sometimes I think it’d be nice if there wasn’t an assumption. Like, if _everyone_ had to come out, straight or whatever,” Karofsky snorts. “It’d be a lot easier to say ‘none of your business’ that way.”

“Or how about ‘it’s only your business if you’re asking me out’?” Brown suggests. There’s a burst of laughter from the group, and Finn looks over at Karofsky to see if that pissed him off, but even Karofsky seems amused. Come to think of it, that’s not a bad idea, having that sort of stuff only be relevant if you’re interested in somebody. Otherwise, what’s it really matter?

There’s not much else to talk about after that, since apparently not that many people in PFLAG have actually come out, and they eat their pizza and talk to each other about random stuff until the bell rings. 

 

The most interesting times to walk in the hallways are between second and third periods, and third and fourth periods, at least for Kurt. Before first period, he’s often with Santana, which is interesting, but not conducive to eavesdropping or observation, and he will readily admit to being distracted on the way to physics. Before and after AP English, though: goldmine. 

Since the prom campaign started, Kurt’s probably listened more to prom chatter than anything else, and Wednesday morning is no exception. There’s girls panicking about their dresses: who else might have the same dress, will the alterations be done, do their shoes really work with the dress? Junior prom is the night before senior prom, except that the juniors once again have the gym, and the seniors actually get the Civic Center, attached to the Wingate Hotel, where no doubt a significant number of the rooms will be filled with seniors and illegally–obtained alcohol. 

Every year, there’s at least one suspension. 

“Terrified not to,” Kurt overhears as he turns a corner. “I heard he was going to break off toes.”

“Yeah, someone said he bought a canister of liquid nitrogen, so he could freeze them first, but I don’t think he’s that nice.” The guy in question has his face almost hidden in his locker. “I know I’m not on the baseball team, so I’m not too worried, but we did write on that one poster.”

“Hey, that was funny,” a third voice says. “Even if I could tell why you have a C in English, moron.”

“How was I supposed to know about that? Anyway, we’d just better lie low and stay out of Hudson’s way.”

Kurt shakes his head. Who on earth knows what Finn’s been up to now?

 

Nothing interesting ever happens on Wednesdays, at least not during the day. Finn does have to replace a few more posters, which means he has to have a little talk with a couple of those baseball players, but it seems like maybe they’re starting to get the idea that it’s not acceptable behavior to write on Finn’s brother’s posters. He doesn’t actually snap off any fingers this time, but he thinks the shorter guy might have wet his pants a little. He doesn’t notice any additional vandalized posters for the rest of the day.

Wednesday night is Finn and Kurt’s super–secret TV watching night, the one they don’t talk about. The one they don’t even tell _Puck_ about, because Kurt says that Puck would be ‘horrified and appalled’ if he found out that Finn and Kurt had started watching _Survivor_ every Wednesday night, like a total boss. Now it’s kind of their thing, and they always heat up bagel bites and drink root beer and watch _Survivor_ together. 

Kurt says it’s important to have this brotherly bonding time together before they leave for college, but Finn suspects it’s really more that if Puck ever finds out about _Survivor_ , that Kurt wants someone to blame. Finn’ll totally take the fall though. Those immunity challenges are kickass.

They’re in the middle of their episode, and that chick with the bandanna is crying again, and they’ve already finished the bagel bites, when there’s a loud knock on the door.

“Who the fuck dares interrupt our _Survivor_ night?” Finn declares.

“Maybe it’s someone here to see your mom?” Kurt suggests, turning the volume down slightly. 

“On a Wednesday?” Finn asks. “Oh, god. You don’t think it’s Rachel, do you? I keep expecting her to just show up one day, maybe disguised as a UPS guy or something, and I don’t want any kind of package she’s delivering, dude.”

Whoever it is, they knock again, a little louder, and Kurt sighs. “I suppose we have to let them in.” Kurt heads towards the door and turns back before opening the door. “If it _is_ Rachel, you owe me for making her leave.”

“I definitely would owe you,” Finn agrees. 

When Kurt opens the door, though, it’s not Rachel. Before Finn can even be relieved to see that it’s actually Mike, Mike come stumbling through the door and flings himself onto the couch between Finn and Kurt in a miserable heap.

“It’s over,” he says woodenly. 

“No,” Finn says. “It’s only halfway through. Wait, were you coming over for _Survivor_?”

“You two watch _Survivor_?” Mike asks, at least temporarily distracted from whatever _is_ over.

“Don’t tell anyone,” Kurt insists. “Especially not Puck.”

“Seriously. Don’t tell Puck,” Finn says.

“Uh, right.” Mike sighs heavily. “Tina just broke up with me.”

Kurt looks comically surprised. “What?”

“What?” Finn echoes, because what the hell else is he supposed to say to that?

“We were at the Lima Bean,” Mike says miserably, “and we were talking about places we’d like to live—you know, after Boston—and Tina just _freaked_. She was all ‘I don’t want to be tied down’ and ‘I am a powerful woman!’ and ‘How can you talk so casually about the future, maybe we have different visions for it’ and then just. Boom. She left.”

“So you guys, like, broke up or what?” Finn asks. “Where’d you want to move that upset her so much?”

“I have no idea.” Mike frowns, looking like he could possibly burst into tears at any moment. “Maybe it was the idea of living overseas for a year or two. And she drove off before I could get outside, so I started walking around and then I decided to walk down here because you guys were closest.”

“Did you try calling her?”

“Straight to voicemail,” Mike confirms, sniffing. 

“So, are you still taking her to prom?” Finn asks.

“Finn!” Kurt hisses.

“What? I’m just trying to figure out if we need to get a lesbian for Mike, too!”

Kurt giggles, then looks guilty. “Well, it’s just— so many lesbians.”

“No, no lesbian for me,” Mike insists. “I’ll just go alone if Tina doesn’t want me to take her now.”

Kurt’s phone dings with a new text, and Kurt frowns as he quickly types in his passcode. “Apparently she’s sobbing at Brittany’s.”

Mike looks distressed at the news. “Oh, god, not Brittany.”

“Why not Brittany?” Finn asks. “I bet she’s great when someone’s upset. Like, super comforting or whatever. She’ll probably have Tina feeling fine in no time.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of! She’ll comfort her with ladykisses!”

“Mike!” Finn shakes his head. “We talked about this in PFLAG. Just because somebody is bi, it doesn’t mean they’re hitting on everybody,” he says, then adds, “unless maybe they’re Brown.”

“No, it— it wouldn’t be the first time,” Mike whispers.

“Wait, _what_?” Kurt demands.

“Wow,” Finn says, mostly to himself. “Everybody in glee club really _has_ hooked up with everybody else.”

“I’ve only hooked up with a couple of people,” Mike protests. “And, uh. Yeah.” He won’t meet their eyes.

“A couple?” Kurt shakes his head. “I am _so_ utterly confused.”

“Wait, so Tina and Brittany, for real?” Finn asks. 

“Last spring after Britt broke up with Artie?” Mike says. “And until Santana got her shit together. Hell, Brittany’s made out with everyone in the glee club except Mercedes and Rachel. But, uh.” Mike looks to the side. “It’s not really as, you know, kinky as it sounds. Three, I mean.”

Finn thinks it’s probably better if he offers no commentary on that statement. He also thinks it’s better if he doesn’t look in Kurt’s direction for a while, like maybe until this conversation is over, or until Mike leaves, or until tomorrow.

“Uh.” Kurt makes some kind of weird choking noise. “No. No, I don’t guess it would be. If everyone’s all friends. Or whatever.”

“No,” Finn finally says. “It’s definitely as kinky as it sounds.”

Kurt makes another weird noise, and now Mike whips his head to stare at Finn. “Dude.”

“What? I’m allowed to have opinions.”

“You didn’t say you _thought_ it would be. You said it _was_!” Mike looks stunned. “What kind of freaky club are we?” Finn just shrugs. “Well, damn,” Mike continues. “Good for you, bro.” He offers his fist for Finn to bump.

“Right back at ya, man,” Finn says, bumping his knuckles against Mike’s.

“Nothing quite like two ladies, is there? Sorry, Kurt.”

“Uh,” Finn says. “Yeah. I’m sure there’s not. But, probably this is too much talk about girl parts or whatever for poor Kurt, so.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Mike agrees, looking a little confused, and then he sighs again. “So, yeah. Brittany’s.”

“If it’s any consolation, it was Mercedes that texted,” Kurt offers. 

“Anyway, I’m pretty sure Britt wouldn’t cheat on Santana,” Finn says. “I mean, unless Tina, like, tricked her or something.”

“Well, that’s something.” Mike looks mournful, like one of those droopy–faced dogs, only extra sad and droopy. “Also, my feet hurt. I wasn’t planning to walk around Lima tonight.”

“Dude. Sucks, man,” Finn says. “You want a root beer?”

Mike shrugs and nods. “Yeah, sure. Sorry I took you guys away from your, uh, _Survivor_ night.”

“Brotherly bonding time is very important,” Finn says, in his serious voice, but he cuts his eyes over at Kurt to see if Kurt is looking when he says it. When he and Kurt make eye contact, Finn starts laughing. Kurt looks a little shocked and then starts laughing too, which seems to utterly confuse Mike. 

“Can I just slump on your couch for a little while? And then get a ride home from one of you?”

“Of course.”

“Yeah, I can take you home later,” Finn says. “I’ll go get your root beer. Kurt, you should turn _Survivor_ back on. We can at least see who gets voted off.”

 

When Finn walks into history on Thursday, Puck and Sam are involved in some kind of in-depth conversation about their song for glee later. Sam has his guitar out, and Puck’s asking some kind of question. 

“More like Roger Miller, or Stipe, or the Rufus duet from _Brokeback_?”

“I haven’t heard the Rufus version,” Sam says. “What’s it like?”

“Actually a duet, the instrumentation is a little different,” Puck says. Sam offers his guitar and Puck plays something off the top of his head, which leaves Sam nodding. 

“That’s pretty cool. Along with the lead guitar?”

“Yeah, it works well together.”

“You guys should do it together,” Brittany says. 

“Uh, Britt,” Finn says. “You remember about the game, right? And also how they’re both seeing people,” he adds, with his voice lowered.

“Dude.” Puck shakes his head, and Sam’s barely stifling a laugh. 

“I can’t help it, dude!” Finn says. “You weren’t there last night. You didn’t have that conversation with Mike!”

“Is that where Mike went?” Brittany asks. “Did he cry, too?”

“No,” Finn says. “Well, not much, anyway.”

“Did you make him feel better?” 

“ _NO!_ ” Finn says. 

Puck is snickering, and Sam just looks completely confused. “Why not, dude? That’s kind of harsh.”

“Oh, they gave him a root beer and let him talk,” Puck answers for Finn. 

“But we did _not_ make him feel better,” Finn says. “He left just as miserable as when he got there. Only Tina’s gonna be able to make him feel any better.”

Brittany giggles and looks away, which is really all Finn needs to confirm that Mike was not just making shit up last night. 

“I think I’m missing something,” Sam shrugs. “But yeah, doing it as a duet would be cool, if you want.” 

“Sure,” Puck nods. “Sounds good. I’ll send you a link to the Rufus version on YouTube before lunch.”

They all settle in for class and that’s the last Finn thinks about Mike and Tina until fourth period. When he walks into the choir room, he sees the two of them in the back row, obviously making up, and by making up, he means making _out_. Good to know that the crisis is averted, though at the rate this week is going, some other crisis is probably just waiting for Finn to stop paying attention so it can sneak up on him.

“This is awful,” Santana says loudly behind him. “I’m too fucking bloated to fit into my dress.”

And there it is. Finn groans and looks over at Puck, who shrugs at him, hands up like he has no clue why this needs to be announced to the room. 

“Nutrition is the key, Santana!” Rachel chirps. “Adding additional calcium and physical activity can combat the negative effects of hormonal fluctuations!”

Santana glares at Rachel. “Or I could take some fucking Midol,” she snarls, stalking over to the seat next to Brittany and dropping into it. “I think I’ll get plenty of ‘physical activity’ during rehearsal _right now_.”

“I can go to Coach Sylvester and see if she has any of those chocolate laxatives,” Brittany offers. “I think she also has some of those Mexican diuretics.”

“Tomorrow,” Santana sighs. “I’ll give it until tomorrow.”

Before they can get started with rehearsals, they have to pry Tina and Mike off of each other, which turns out to be a lot harder than you’d think. Mike’s really flexible, and keeps managing to slide out of their grasp and re-entangle himself with Tina, like some kind of weird horny octopus. Santana, Kurt, and Puck are the ones who manage to pull the two of them apart, and they make the two of them sit at opposite ends of the room for five minutes so that they can get calmed down. 

Rehearsal is still great and after rehearsal, Finn discovers that they are serving chicken-fried steak for lunch. This week has been a series of massively intense ups and downs. On the one hand, breakups and bloating and vandalism, but on the other hand, chicken-fried steak. The rest of the day is uneventful, and he manages to skip out of A&P a little early by saying he has to go A&actually pee. 

Since there’s no point in going back to class for only a few more minutes, Finn just heads on to the choir room again, where he finds Puck talking to some lady on his laptop. Puck waves at him briefly and then turns back to the laptop for another three or four minutes before finishing whatever it is and closing the laptop. 

“Skipping class?” Puck asks. 

“Nah, I had to pee.”

“Yeah, I don’t see a toilet in here, dude.”

“I peed already, dude,” Finn says. “Seriously.”

“A relief. I was going to have to offer you that bottle of water the jazz band left in here last week.” Puck jerks his head towards said water bottle, which really has been sitting next to the drums for at least a week. 

“Nah, I’m good,” Finn says. “So who was that lady on your laptop?”

“This scholarship thing I applied for,” Puck shrugs. “Thought it was a longshot but apparently I’m an interesting story. Made it to the ‘finalist’ stage and they were all ‘fly to California for an interview!’ but I asked if I could just Skype it or FaceTime it or something, because it wasn’t like they were going to pay for the plane ticket and the hours I’d miss at work.”

Finn makes a face and shakes his head. “Yeah, dude. That doesn’t make much sense. You need money for school, so you can pay all that money you don’t have to fly to California?”

Puck snorts. “I know. So, yeah.” He shrugs. “I mean, I don’t need much, compared to the actual cost, but.”

“Do you think you’re gonna get it?” Finn asks. 

“Who knows? Like I said – I’m an interesting story.” Puck shrugs. 

“Oh, you’re interesting alright,” Finn says. 

“I have the feeling I should be insulted.”

“When I insult you, you’ll know it. It won’t just be a feeling.”

“Will it be… more than a feeling?” Puck grins. 

Finn shakes his head. “If you start singing right now, I’m leaving.”

“ _I’m Henry the eighth I am, I am, Henry the eighth I am_.”

“Duuuuude,” Finn complains. “Stoppit.” Puck just keeps grinning. 

Kurt walks in then, and he shakes his head at them. “What are you two doing now?” he asks as he drops into the seat between Finn and Puck. 

“I’m just minding my own business and Puck is harassing me,” Finn says. 

“Yep. Harassing you through song, man,” Puck laughs. “Rough life.”

“It is a rough life. I was gonna flee, but then I wasn’t sure I’d make it back in time, and then you were here, so it seemed safer,” Finn says.

“Yes, Finn, I’m a great defender of virtue,” Kurt says, smirking a bit. 

“Well if anybody would know where to find my virtue, I guess you would,” Finn says, shrugging, then he sort of freezes. “Uh. We’ll just pretend I didn’t say that in my outloud voice, ok?”

“Oh, I thought we were talking about it now,” Puck says, shrugging. 

“No.” 

“Are we talking about Mike’s revelation?” Puck asks. 

“Yeah, I don’t even know what to say about that,” Finn says. “I mean, I guess he figured out the legs thing, too.”

“It does explain their interest in the cheerleader movie,” Kurt points out. 

“Oh, no, man. It explains Tina’s _shirt_!” Finn says. “I don’t think I needed to know that.”

“Mental connections I hadn’t made yet for a thousand, Alex,” Puck groans.

“Now you enjoy all the same thoughts I’m enjoying,” Finn says. “And by enjoy, I mean, not enjoy.”

“Theoretically, you’d enjoy it more than we would,” Kurt says.

“What would Finn enjoy more than you?” Tina asks from the doorway, and the three of them freeze in place. 

“Uh,” Finn says, trying not to choke to death on his own tongue or something. “Uh. Kurt?”

“Snowshoeing!”

“Bigger feet!” Finn exclaims. “That’s why!”

“Ooh, I bet that’s fun to try! Do they have a snowshoe club at Wisconsin?”

“Uh, no clue,” Finn says. “But I’ll send you guys a postcard from Wisconsin when I figure it out, ok?”

“Cool!” Tina answers, taking a seat. Everybody else shows up and eventually Schue gets there. 

“Let’s get started!” Mr. Schue says, clapping his hands together. “Who’s going to lead us off?”

“I’ll go, Mr. Schue,” Artie says, rolling up to the front of the room. “You might recognize this song a little more than the rest of the glee club does.” Artie says something to the jazz band and then starts singing. 

_One, two princes kneel before you  
That what I said now  
Princes, princes who adore you  
Just go ahead now _

Finn doesn’t recognize the song, but the jazz band seems to. Those guys know every song out there, apparently. It’s like they’re wizards or something.

When Artie finishes, Santana volunteers, singing some song about may queens. 

_Where have I have been?  
Got any what?  
Who have I seen?  
I spy a may queen  
You were miles above me  
Girls in your arms_

“Continuing the theme of songs I remember,” Mr. Schue says, laughing a little. “Nice choice, Santana.” 

Mike goes next, singing “God Save the Queen.”

_God save the Queen  
she ain't no human being.  
There is no future  
in England's dreaming_

Tina looks especially pleased with Mike’s choice, and after he finishes, Sam stands up. 

“So I was going to do ‘King of the Road’, and then Puck and I started talking about different covers of the song this morning, so he’s going to help me out with this one a bit.” Puck nods and stands up, holding his own guitar. 

_Trailers for sale or rent  
Rooms to let… fifty cents.  
No phone, no pool, no pets  
I ain't got no cigarettes  
Ah, but… two hours of pushin' broom  
Buys an eight by twelve four-bit room  
I'm a man of means by no means  
King of the road._

Puck sounds pretty awesome. This is definitely his sort of music, and he and Sam harmonize pretty well on the song. When they’re done, Mr. Schue goes through whatever little speech thing he usually does at the end of class. Everybody picks up all their stuff and they leave. 

 

“Dude. Dude. Your brother’s going to go get a glass of water in thirty more seconds.”

“Huh?” Finn’s not sure why his brother’s getting water or why he could care. “What?”

“To wake you up. If we want food, you gotta get up.”

“I don’t want water. Why are you waking me up so early?” Finn says. 

“Your alarm didn’t go off or something. You slept late. Kurt’s gonna pour the water on you if you don’t get up, and I’m totally going to take a picture.”

Finn sits bolt upright in his bed. “Shit! My alarm didn’t go off? Shit! How late am I?”

“No shaving. Unless you want to starve.”

“I don’t want to starve,” Finn says. “I guess I’ll just be scruffy.” He hauls himself out of bed and pulls off the T-shirt he slept in. “Uh, Puck? If you don’t want a free show…”

Puck just laughs. “Three minutes, dude,” he says as he walks to the door. 

Finn’s dressed and out at the Nav in two and a half minutes. “Sorry, guys,” he says, climbing into the back. “I don’t know what happened. I never forget to set my alarm! Thanks for not leaving me.”

“As absent-minded as Carole’s been, she probably turned yours off thinking it was her own,” Kurt says, starting the Nav and driving towards Waffle House. 

“Pretzels make moms turn off alarms,” Finn sighs. “I’m so hungry. And I look awful.”

“The first one will be remedied shortly. And you look fine, Finn.”

“I should have brought my electric razor with me,” Finn says. “I’m scruffy. I look, like, unprofessional or whatever. I’m not a good campaign manager!”

“Some people like scruffy,” Puck says. 

“Yeah, but I don’t think I know those people,” Finn says. “I look like I just rolled out of bed or something.”

“Mmm, you might. And dude, you _did_ just roll out of bed.”

“Oh, yeah. I guess I did.”

They park at the Waffle House and snag a booth. Finn orders a double order of hashbrowns with all kinds of stuff in them, a waffle, and bacon _and_ sausage, just because it’s that kind of morning. 

“Carole said to remind you that we have to be on time for dinner because of the cake. I don’t know why she thinks we’d forget about dinner or the cake either one,” Kurt says between sips of coffee as they wait for their food. 

“The big reveal cake,” Finn says. “Are either of you kind of weirded out by the idea of finding out if Pretzel’s a boy or a girl by stabbing a cake with a knife?”  
bu  
“Not as weird as some stranger knowing before Carole does,” Puck shrugs. “ _That’s_ bizarre.”

“No, I think she works with the person who made the cake,” Finn says. “She’s a hobby baker or something. Does birthday cakes for kids’ parties or something.”

“Still weird, dude. The whole thing’s a little weird.”

“Do you think Pretzel’s a boy or a girl? I know I _want_ a girl–Pretzel.”

“What does it mean if the pregnant woman craves mango?” Kurt jokes. “Prediction by mango.”

“It means she’s actually having a baby iguana,” Puck grins. “Right?”

“That makes sense, because Kurt’s a lizard, too, so Pretzel’s half lizard, right?”

“We should invest in wool clothing for Pretzel, then. Or at least a heavy blanket.”

“Lots of hats,” Finn says. “Little tiny _baby_ hats!”

Puck grins suddenly. “K, do they make baby fedoras?”

“Ooh, I don’t know.”

“Poor Pretzel. Won’t even let him or her dress like a normal baby,” Finn says. “I meant cute woolly baby hats.”

“A baby fedora would be _very_ cute,” Kurt says, making his pouty frown. 

“Aww, don’t be sad, big brother,” Finn says, patting Kurt on the shoulder. “I’m sure mom’ll let you put all kinds of weird hats on Pretzel.”

“They aren’t _weird_ ,” Kurt says, stabbing a piece of waffle with some extra force. “It’s not my fault most people discount the value of a good hat.”

“What if Pretzel gets my giant head,” Finn points out. “He or she might not look as good in hats, and you can’t make her or him feel bad about it. It won’t be his or her fault.” Finn take a bite of his bacon, and then uses the bacon to point at Kurt as he adds, “I’ll be glad when we have that cake, because I’m tired of making sure I always say ‘him or her’.”

“Then Pretzel just needs a larger size of hat, obviously. Of course you look ridiculous in hats that are made for _my_ head, Finn.”

“No, I just look ridiculous in hats,” Finn sighs. “It’s so sad. No hats for me with my awesome suit.”

“Don’t say that,” Puck shakes his head. “K’ll take it as a personal challenge.”

“Hey, if he can find a hat that looks right on me, I’d wear it,” Finn says. “He knows what he’s doing.”

“I _do_ know what I’m doing. You know what else you should find? A trench coat. Or another nice overcoat, if you want to avoid the traditional trench.”

“Should I avoid a trench? Why do I need to avoid a trench?” Finn asks.

“Some people aren’t as fond of the double-breasted silhouette.”

“Yeah, I have no idea what that means, dude, but you just tell me what kind of coat looks right and I’ll go with whatever you say,” Finn says. “You’re better at dressing me than I am.”

“What was that you said the other day, dude? Manimals?”

“Yup. Like Garanimals for adults.”

“Color-coded labels?” Kurt suggests. “Only wear the yellow with other yellow labels, and so forth?”

“Exactly like that,” Finn says. “Oh, hey, we can buy me some clothes and glue some colored labels inside of them before I go off to school! Then you won’t be horrified when you see pictures of me.”

“Oh, darling, I promise I wouldn’t be horrified. Just saddened.”

“You don’t have to be sarcastic or whatever. I’m _trying_ to do better with my clothes!”

Kurt blinks. “I wasn’t!” 

Finn tilts his head and squints at Kurt a little, trying to figure out if Kurt was maybe being accidentally sarcastic or something. “Just, the ‘darling’ thing. I thought that was maybe your new sarcasm.”

“Oh.” Kurt looks uncomfortable for a split second and looks over at Puck for a moment before shrugging. “I can stop.”

“So it’s _not_ sarcasm?” Finn asks. 

“Um. No.”

Puck shakes his head, looking amused. “Sarcasm would be ‘sugar dumpling’.”

“Oh, ok then,” Finn says. “Then it’s fine.” It’s probably from one of those old movies Kurt likes, then. Sometimes he gets a little funny with his wording when he’s been watching a lot of _Casablanca_ or stuff like that. He also wears hats every day when he’s going through one of his old movie phases, though, and Finn hasn’t noticed an excess of hats. Either way, if it’s not sarcastic, it’s fine by Finn.

“Good.” Kurt smiles briefly, then motions for the waitress. “Marla, can we get our to-go cups now?”

“Sure,” Marla says, and soon enough all three of them have large cups full of coffee to carry with them to school. 

 

As Finn and Puck walk through the hall to their history classroom, Finn is pleased to see that none of the posters he put up on Thursday have been written on even a little bit, and the ones that were still in good shape on Thursday morning are also still fine. Maybe Trilby got the news out to the other baseball players that dirty campaign tactics weren’t acceptable. 

“Maybe we should’ve gone with the lollipops after all,” Puck says, looking at the oatmeal cookie crumbs from someone’s campaign that are littering the floor. “Tootsie Pops.”

“Dude, sometimes I think _you_ really have a chocolate center and that’s why you have to eat so much of it,” Finn says. “You’ve gotta, like, replenish your chocolate core or something.”

“How many licks does it take to reach the delicious chocolate?” Puck laughs. 

“Uh.” Finn feels like maybe he’s blushing, but it’s possible that they just haven’t turned the heat off in the building yet. Sometimes they base that on date instead of actual temperature. “I wouldn’t know, dude.”

“Probably better we didn’t put that as a slogan.”

“Yeah, I’m thinking that’s probably true,” Finn agrees. 

As they’re rounding the corner for the history hall, they pass a small group of people talking about prom. “Yeah, I don’t know who to vote for now,” one girl says. 

“I know, right? I was thinking about Zizes, but…” another girl answers.

“And then you still have to figure out King,” one guy says. “And we don’t want the school to be making a statement by _not_ electing one of the same-sex couples. Right? We’ll be laughingstocks next year, everyone in Ohio’s heard about Lima now.”

“Plus, you’ve gotta admit, Hummel was pretty cool about that shit last year,” the other guy with them says. “Standing up there and putting on that crown anyway. You know what I’ve heard people calling him? ‘Brass’, like for his big brass balls!”

Finn laughs and elbows Puck at that last part. Puck shakes his head, biting his lip. “Yeah, well, with Hudson’s campaign of terror, I’m pretty sure Lopez and Pierce don’t stand a chance against Hummel and Puckerman.”

The little clump of people finally gets out of Finn and Puck’s way so they can get into their history class, and Finn’s still laughing about the brass balls things. “Oh man, Puck, don’t tell Kurt about that! He’ll find Brown and kill him for real.”

“But I’d like to watch that!” Puck protests. “And what does he mean, your campaign of terror, dude?”

Finn shrugs. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Or what they’re talking about. I’m not campaigning for anything.”

“Uh-huh.” Puck shakes his head. “You are the campaign manager.”

“Yep!” Finn says. “Isn’t it nice how nobody’s written on any of your posters the last two days?”

“Nice, yeah. And just a bit suspicious.” Puck looks very amused. “You wouldn’t have anything to do with that, would you?”

“Just had a nice pleasant talk with a few people,” Finn says, shrugging. “My job’s to make sure nobody gives you guys shit. Your job is to be the pretty, pretty face of this campaign. Well, ok, that’s Kurt’s job. Your job is to be his arm candy.”

“Yeah, so if I’m leading when we dance, does that still work?”

“Dude, we’ve _all_ seen Kurt’s shirt,” Finn says.

Puck laughs. “I didn’t say it wasn’t Kurt who told me to lead.”

“Like I said, man. Arm candy.”

 

Finn walks into fourth period glee; the girls are once again clustered, this time around Quinn. She’s not dramatically crying like Rachel was on Monday, just more quietly weeping, and Finn wonders if it’s more girl body–drama or boy drama or what, because really, the girls are out of hand this week. 

He sits down next to Kurt and whispers, “What’s the drama today?”

“Apparently, Quinn’s older sister is having a baby, and announced it last night,” Kurt replies quietly. “Or so says Mercedes, at any rate.”

“Man, we do get pretty worked up about babies in this glee club,” Finn says. “Is something wrong with her sister or the baby or something?”

“It’s a ‘harsh reminder’ of her own ‘past mistakes’ or something, or so Mercedes says.” Kurt shrugs. “Funny how two months ago Beth was someone she could try to erase, and today it’s one of the defining tragedies of her life.”

“Oh. Yeah, I don’t even understand how that works,” Finn says. “The rules keep changing.”

“Don’t they, though.”

Mr. Schue comes walking into the choir room, whistling, and Finn rolls his eyes in Kurt and Puck’s direction. “Isn’t it a beautiful day?” he says. “What songs do you guys have for us today?”

Mercedes volunteers to go first, saying that she’s doing the Tina Turner version of a song by The Who. 

_I'm the Gypsy – the acid queen.  
Pay before we start.  
The Gypsy – I'm guaranteed.  
I'll tear your soul apart._

_Gather your wits and hold on fast,  
Your mind must learn to roam.  
Just as the Gypsy Queen must do  
You're gonna hit the road._

Then Kurt stands up. “I’m going to do a song _by_ Queen.”

_Yeah, you don't waste no time at all  
Don't hear the bell but you answer the call  
It comes to you as to us all  
Hey, we're just waiting  
For the hammer to fall – yeah_

_Oh every night, and every day  
A little piece of you is falling away  
But lift your face, the western way, baby  
Build your muscles as your body decays_

Kurt makes some weird faces when he’s singing Queen, but he sounds awesome. Of course, he pretty much always sounds awesome, and that’s why he gets to go to a musical college. 

After Kurt finishes, Puck goes, because he hadn’t exactly planned on doing ‘King of the Road’ with Sam the day before, or whatever. “Yeah, I’m doing an Elton John song.” There’s a pause and Puck smirks. “’Cause of how he’s a famous queen.”

_If I was a sculptor, but then again, no  
Or a man who makes potions in a travelling show  
I know it's not much but it's the best I can do  
My gift is my song and this one's for you  
And you can tell everybody this is your song  
It may be quite simple but now that it's done_

Well, that explains why Kurt kept playing that song on his iPod all summer, anyway. The two of them are so ridiculous. Quinn goes up to the front last, mostly calmed down, though she’s still all melty and droopy looking, and she sings “Can’t Help Falling in Love” by Elvis. She looks like she probably _could_ help it though, and that falling in love is kinda low on her priority list at the moment. Finn feels kind of bad for her, because no matter how awful she’s acted, she’s obviously really upset _now_ , and Finn hates seeing people upset like that. 

“These were great songs, you guys! We’ll be rehearsing in the auditorium or wherever else Mike feels like making you dance. I’ll see you all tomorrow at prom – I’m one of the chaperones for senior prom every year.”

“And don’t forget to vote for Prom King and Queen!” Finn adds. 

“Or apparently my brother will break your toes.”

“Hey!” Finn protests. “It was _fingers_. No, wait. I mean, it was nothing!”

“And of course, may the best king—and queen—win,” Santana says, voice sugary. 

Puck scoffs from the other side of Kurt. “Seriously, again?”

 

“Isn’t it so cute?” Finn’s mom is practically gushing over the cake with its green icing teddy bear on the top. 

“Uh, yeah mom,” Finn says. “Super cute.”

“Can you go tell Kurt and Noah that dinner’s ready? I made a whole baby–themed meal!”

“Are we eating baby animals?”

“Baby back ribs. I never was sure if those were baby pigs or not.” Carole stops and makes a face, slapping at Finn with a hot pad. “Finn! Of course we’re not eating _baby_ animals.”

“You said it was a theme!” Finn says, ducking away from the hot pad. “It’s a fair question!”

“Just go get your brother!”

“Ok, ok! Geez!” Finn sprints up the stairs. “Kurt! Puck! Come eat baby animals!”

“Baby animals?” Kurt repeats as they walk out of Kurt’s room. “We’re eating baby animals?”

“Not really,” Finn says. “Just baby–themed.”

“To go with the cake?” Puck makes a face and shakes his head. “Dude, pregnancy’s making your mom really weird.”

“Or maybe she was always this weird, and pregnancy’s just unleashing it!” Finn says. “It’s scary.”

“She asked me yesterday if I had a Pinterest account, and did I want to follow her,” Kurt says, shaking his head. “It is a bit frightening.”

“I think it’ll help once she knows if Pretzel’s a boy or a girl. She’ll have something new to obsess over,” Finn says.

“Mmm, I hope so,” Kurt nods, then stops talking as they walk into the kitchen. 

“Oh, good, time to eat!” Carole greets them, gesturing to the table. It’s the weirdest spread of food ever, with the baby back ribs, baby carrots, baby lima beans, and tiny little miniature rolls. 

“That’s all themed, all right,” Finn says. 

“You know baby carrots are just full-size carrots that they’ve cut,” Kurt whispers under his breath.

“They’re not really that tiny? That makes me sad.” Finn whispers back, or tries to whisper. His mom notices and makes a face at him. 

Kurt looks like he’s about to say something else, then catches sight of Carole and stops, sitting down beside Puck. “Very creative,” Puck says after a long moment.

“The ribs are great, mom,” Finn says. 

“I thought that would make up for the baby limas!” Carole says almost conspiratorially as Burt enters. 

“Sorry I’m late, honey,” Burt says, leaning over to give Carole a kiss. “Crisis at work. Everything smells great.”

“I hope it wasn’t anything serious?”

“Someone brought in a car with an exploding radiator right before close,” Burt says. “Water spraying everywhere. It was a mess.”

“It happens at least once every spring,” Kurt sighs. “People forget that their air conditioning needs maintenance too.”

“They also forget auto shops have _hours_ ,” Burt grumbles. Finn notices that Burt only takes the smallest possible scoop of the lima beans. Apparently, even baby–sized lima beans are still lima beans, and nobody really wants them.

“Remember the guy that drove up thirty minutes after closing last year?” Kurt says. “You’d think we had closed just to inconvenience him.”

“ _The customer is always right and you’re still here!_ ” Burt says in a funny voice, like he’s imitating somebody. “Some people.”

“That’s just horrible.” Carole shakes her head. “So demanding. We have people like that sometimes at the hospital. I’m sure Noah does, too, at Starbucks.”

“The milk is _never_ the right temperature,” Puck agrees. 

“Weird return requests when I worked at Sheets n’ Things,” Finn offers. “I like the garage a lot better.”

“Did people try to return all those toilet brushes you sold that one week?” Kurt asks.

“A few of them, but mostly it was like, half used bottles of hand soap and old sheets,” Finn says. 

“Were they stained like that one time?” Puck asks, laughing. 

“Dude, I didn’t even look that closely at them. I just took their word for it that they hadn’t used them,” Finn says. “They had a receipt so I gave them back their money.”

“Yeah, and then a week or two later, someone else would return their new sheets, saying they were stained.” Puck snorts. 

“A lot of sheet staining going on in this town,” Finn says, then looks around the table. “I mean, uh.”

“Well, is everyone ready for the big moment?” Carole exclaims.

“Let’s do this thing!” Finn says. “Right? We can do this thing?”

“Yes!” Carole gets up and brings the green teddy bear cake over to the table, along with a long cake knife. “Who wants to make the cut?”

“I think it oughta be you, honey,” Burt says. “You’re the one baking the Pretzel.”

“Are you sure?” Carole asks, but then she starts slicing into the cake anyway, and grins before the rest of them can see what she’s grinning about.

“What? What flavor baby is it?” Finn asks, trying to look into the sliced section.

Carole just keeps grinning and turns the cake towards Burt slightly, so he can see. “Well, I’ll be!” Burt says, and he starts grinning, too. “Will you look at that!”

“What?” Finn says again, hopping in place in his seat. “Oh my god, mom, show us!”

“Be patient!” Carole insists, but then she does turn the cake so they can see the sliced part. 

_The bright pink sliced part._

“Girl Pretzel!” Finn whoops. “Yes!”

“Oooh!” is all Kurt says, his hands together in front of him. Finn leans over and grabs Kurt into a big hug.

“Sister Pretzel, dude!” Finn says. “Puck! We’re getting a sister, did you see?”

“Yeah, have fun,” Puck grins. “Tiny little sister!”

“This is so awesome!” Finn hugs Kurt one more time, just because.

“Now we can really make some plans, honey!” Carole says to Burt. “For the nursery and everything!”

 

The downside of being the one who does the heavy lifting is that Finn gets roped into doing a lot of heavy lifting. In retrospect, he should have volunteered to be the pretty one. It’s really weird how empty Puck’s room looks, no furniture at all and nothing on the walls, and Finn’s secretly glad he at least doesn’t have to lug Puck’s furniture around anywhere. 

Hannah’s bouncing around all the rooms of the apartment, brandishing a rainbow of Sharpies. “Finn! All of the red ones are for you to carry!”

“Let me guess. They’re the really heavy ones,” Finn says. 

“Yep!” Hannah grins. “All the blue ones are for Kurt, ’cause they’re fragile. And the orange ones are heavy _and_ big, so you might want to get Burt or Noah to help you.”

“I could carry fragile stuff,” Finn says. “Just don’t open those boxes and look inside. If your face breaks that stuff, I don’t want to get blamed.”

“Well, I told Mom not to let you near any of the kitchen boxes—they’re green—because just being around you will make our food go bad!”

“Your food’s already bad, because it doesn’t have any bacon,” Finn shoots back at her. “Well, ok, that’s what Puck keeps telling me, anyway.”

“Shh, don’t say that too loud.” Hannah giggles. 

“So, hey, ugly,” Finn says, lowering his voice as he lifts one of the red–marked boxes. “Can you keep a secret?”

“Uh-huh!” Hannah nods. “What is it?”

“We found out what kind of baby my mom’s having,” Finn says. “But you can’t tell anybody yet.”

“Is it a person like Kurt, or a gorilla like you?”

“It’s a shrimp like _you_ ,” Finn says. “A _girl_ shrimp.”

“Ooh! Really? That’s so cool!”

“I know, right? I wanted a sister, even if she’s probably gonna be even more horrible looking than you are.” Finn makes a face at Hannah, sticking out his tongue and rolling his eyes around. “I bet she smells better, though.”

“Babies smell funny, I thought.” Hannah shrugs. “As long as she doesn’t look like _you_ she’ll be fine,” she says, running into a different room, still waving her Sharpies around. 

Finn shakes his head and carries his box out of the apartment down the flight of stairs to the new place. On his way back in to Puck’s old apartment, Finn notices that Burt isn’t actually helping with the move so much as hovering around Carole like he’s afraid she’s going to pass out from the exhausting task of wiping down surfaces in the kitchen. That’s great help there, Burt.

“I have the feeling that having us ‘help’ was a ruse to have us do _all_ of it,” Puck grumbles as he helps Finn with Hannah’s bed, Kurt carrying drawers to Hannah’s dresser. “Have you noticed that?”

“Hannah carried a suitcase of clothes,” Kurt says. “That’s about it.”

“I never should have agreed that heavy lifting was my job,” Finn says. 

“I think Burt’s picked up one box so far, but then he set it down on the coffee table,” Puck grunts. “Mom carried down four boxes and then announced she was going to get some snacks for us.”

“It’s a plot. An evil plot,” Finn grumbles. “What kind of snacks?”

“Probably kosher ones,” Puck admits. “Since she’s missing services and all that.”

“Oh, fun,” Finn sighs. “Just great.”

“Oh, you have no idea. At least it’s not still Passover.”

“Matzoh and peanut butter?” Finn says.

“Or just matzoh.” Puck shakes his head as they set the bed down finally. “We’d better get back up there. Since apparently we’re the only ones going up and down these stairs.”

Finn sighs again and follows Puck and Kurt back up to the old apartment. At this rate, Finn may be too tired to throw April around at prom. 

 

After everything is moved from Puck’s old apartment to Puck’s new apartment, which isn’t actually Puck’s apartment at all, just Rina and Hannah’s, Finn, Puck and Kurt all head back to Finn’s house to get showered and shaved for prom. While Finn is still in the shower, Kurt puts the rice cooker on, so by the time Finn comes downstairs, the rice is already almost done.

Puck gets assigned to slicing up fish and vegetables, but Kurt says Finn needs to be in charge of getting the rice vinegar set up and laying everything out. Since the last big meal Finn was responsible for ended in a second degree burn, he doesn’t argue with Kurt’s logic. 

“The other boys should be here in fifteen,” Kurt says. “So we’ll have time to get it all assembled and let it cool.”

“Can we make the ones with the cream cheese in them?” Finn asks. “Those are good.”

“Yes, Finn. We will do our valiant best.”

“Do we really have to make some that are just vegetables?”

“If we don’t, dude, we’re letting you handle Rachel.”

“I don’t want to handle Rachel!” Finn says. “The only girl I’m handling tonight is April, and only in a dancing sense.”

“Then we’re making vegetable ones,” Puck concludes. 

“Ok, ok,” Finn grumbles. “Stupid vegans, always getting their way.”

The doorbell rings, and Puck hurries off into the living room to answer it. He comes back to the kitchen with Sam, Mike, and Artie all behind him. “Smells fishy in here,” Sam jokes. 

“It’s because we’re suspicious,” Finn says. “We can’t help it.”

“As long as the girls don’t find our sushi suspicious,” Mike says. “I think we fail if they won’t eat it.”

“Oh, I have to go get the wasabi,” Kurt says suddenly. “I hid it upstairs. From you.” He points at Finn. “And your mother.”

“Fair enough,” Finn says. When Kurt goes upstairs, Finn quickly turns to the other guys. “Hey, so all of you are dancing with Kurt tonight.”

Puck raises an eyebrow and snorts. “You’re funny.”

“No, I’m serious,” Finn says. “If all of us take at least one turn dancing with Kurt, then nobody will give you any shit about dancing with him, since he’s gonna be your Prom King anyway. Then he can dance with you all he wants and everybody can be happy.”

Puck shrugs. “You should take this opportunity to finally dance with Mike.”

“Dude, don’t say anything,” Finn says, glaring at Puck, only not really glaring, just fake glaring. “This was all my big plan to finally dance with him.”

“Right. So silly of me.” Puck frowns. “We should eat some cake.”

“Pink cake. Because it’s a baby cake,” Finn says.

“Baby cake?” Sam looks confused as Kurt walks back into the room. 

“I don’t recommend that as a pet name, Sam,” Kurt says. 

“Oh, no,” Sam shakes his head. “Finn said it was a baby cake.”

“There’s no actual baby in it, though,” Finn says. “It’s just representative of the baby. It was some special boy or girl cake thing my mom wanted to do, and it’s pink, so, _surprise!_ Girl Pretzel!”

“Welcome to the league of brothers with little sisters,” Sam says, grinning. 

“That’s great, guys, congratulations,” Artie says. 

“Yeah, that’s cool. If a little weird,” Mike says. “Colored cake, I mean.”

“Tastes like a normal cake, though,” Puck says. 

“Well, normal cake is good, too,” Finn says. “It’s good cake.”

“It does _not_ taste like pink,” Kurt says firmly. 

“No, it tastes like cake,” Finn agrees. “But good cake.”

“So, cake? And then we learn how to make sushi?” Sam asks. 

“I don’t think it’ll be that hard,” Finn says. “I mean, you’re just rolling rice with a bunch of stuff in it. How hard could that be?”

The answer: awfully fucking hard. Sushi’s way more complicated than Finn ever suspected, and before they get the first roll done, Kurt gets a text from Tina that they need him over there right away to spot check hair and tape various things down so they don’t go flying out of their dresses or something like that. Kurt tries to give them a few tips before walking out of the kitchen to head over to help the girls, rolling his eyes where only Finn and Puck can see. 

Finn, Puck, Artie, Sam, and Mike all start out by attempting the fanciest roll they can think of, with the nori stuff on the outside and all sorts of fish and vegetables inside. It looks like it’s going well all the way up until the part where they try to unroll the bamboo thing after, and then it’s just shred of fish and rice and vegetables everywhere.

“Ok, maybe we should skip the nori?” Finn suggests.

“Or maybe put less stuff inside?” Mike says. “Would that help?”

“We’ll do one my way and one your way,” Finn says. 

Both ways fail pretty magnificently, and then end up just patting most of the rice into the little ovals and slapping fish or whatever on top of it. Artie actually manages to assemble and then slice up two perfect rolls, but then he can’t replicate it. At least one of the rolls is vegan, so that’ll be enough to shut Rachel up. Everybody else can suck it up and eat fish.

“Maybe we should just make it a build–your–own–sushi bar,” Puck suggests, staring at the assorted ingredients. “Put the stuff in nice bowls.”

“Rice balls,” Finn says. “Just stuff all that shit inside of them.”

“That could work, I suppose,” Artie says. “Though we could also do rice bowls with toppings. That’s also traditional.”

“If we don’t _tell_ them it was supposed to be sushi…” Puck stops and looks at Mike and Sam. “Did you tell them it was going to be sushi?”

The two of them shake their heads. “Nope. Told Tina it was a surprise,” Mike elaborates. 

“It’s an assortment of traditional Japanese dishes,” Artie says.

“It’s an assortment of something, alright,” Finn agrees. “Let’s just hope they’ll eat it.”

 

Kurt rolls his eyes again as he climbs into the Navigator. He's pretty sure that the collective intelligence of the seven girls assembled should be enough for them _not_ to need to call him. 

When he gets to Tina's, though, the girls are in various states of disarray. Mercedes has a drooping hem, which is the easiest to fix. It does take a few minutes to find thread, but once that's accomplished, Mercedes is good to go. 

"I think that my make-up is all wrong with this shade of pink," Tina admits, and Kurt finds himself redoing Tina's entire face, using different shades of everything. Lauren gets makeup on her jacket, which leads to spot treatment, and the end of Quinn's sash is starting to fray. That takes longer; pinking shears and clear nail polish finally solve that problem. 

Kurt finds himself taping Santana, because she won't let anyone else touch her, and then Rachel starts worrying that she's showing either too much or too little cleavage. 

He's about to leave at last when Brittany starts talking about having lost her dress, and thirty minutes later, after a frantic but successful search, Kurt finally leaves, knowing he's going to see all the girls again in less than hour. 

Maybe Puck _should_ have come out. Then he could have been the one to get called to deal with hems and stains. 

 

Finn’s room suddenly feels a lot like the McKinley football locker room, only instead of uniforms, everybody’s pulling on identical tuxes. Mike helps Artie with getting everything out of the bag, Sam seems confused about what parts go where, and Finn has everything on except his tie, which he keeps staring at sort of glumly. Puck and Kurt are, predictably, changing in Kurt’s room. 

“You guys, uh, keep tuxedo-ing,” Finn says. “I have to see a man about a tie.”

Finn walks down the hall and taps on Kurt’s door. “Yes?” Kurt calls. 

“You two decent?” Finn asks.

“Come in,” Puck’s voice answers, and a few seconds later, the door swings open. 

“Yeah, I needed some help tying my— holy shit!” Finn says, coming up short at the sight of Puck and Kurt in their tuxedos. “Look at you guys!”

Puck shrugs. “Apparently I clean up nice.” 

“Tying your tie?” Kurt asks, smiling broadly. 

“What?” Finn asks, because now he can’t remember exactly why he came over to Kurt’s room. “Oh, right, yeah. My tie.” He holds it out to Kurt a little sheepishly. “How yours is tied is nice. Can you do that knot for me or is that a one–brother–only knot?”

Kurt giggles for some reason. “Sure, you could have the same knot.” He looks over at Puck, then back at Finn. “You want it tied exactly the same way?”

“Uh, is that a problem? ’Cause that’s a nice knot, so…”

“It’s not a problem for _me_. What do you think, Puck?”

“Hmm. I suppose I could be persuaded.”

Finn looks back and forth between Puck and Kurt. “Am I missing something here?”

“I haven’t tied anyone’s tie except yours in months,” Kurt admits. “Not my own.”

“Well, then who ties your— oh, seriously?” Finn looks at Puck. “You tie his ties?”

Puck nods. “Yep.” He grins. “Still want your tie tied the same way?”

“Yeah, sure, if you don’t mind,” Finn says. Puck takes the tie from Kurt and walks over to stand in front of Finn. 

“I can’t tie it without an actual neck, though,” Puck explains, and Finn really doesn’t have too much time to think about it before Puck’s flipping up his collar and looping the tie around his neck. Finn hasn’t had a tie tied around his neck since he was little, and the experience is… _not the same_. Puck’s hands move surprisingly quickly, and then he tightens up the knot, flips Finn’s collar back down, and straightens the tie. “Good?” he asks as he takes a step back.

“Yeah, I think so, thanks,” Finn says. “It looks right?”

“Looks good,” Kurt says, nodding. 

“I feel like I look a little ridiculous,” Finn says. “This one’s way nicer than last year’s, but still.”

“Light blue cummerbunds are never a good idea,” Kurt agrees. “Just say no to matching your date’s dress, in the future.”

“Yeah, totally going to be relevant all the time, dude,” Finn says. “I see a ton of tuxedos in my future.”

“You said they had some kind of award thing at Wisconsin every year,” Puck points out. 

“And I have a kickass suit that Kurt picked out for me,” Finn says. “No tuxes necessary.”

“Too bad,” one of them says under his breath, and Finn’s not even sure which one it was, or if it was only one of them and not both. 

“So, does that mean the tux looks ok, then?” Finn asks, grinning at them. “If anything needs fixed, you’d better tell me now.”

“Just the shoes, Finn,” Kurt says, shaking his head as he grins back. 

“Nah, I won’t forget those!”

“Then you’re good, dude.”

“Awesome. Thanks for the tie, Puck,” Finn says. “I guess I’ll go make sure the other guys are done and we’ll go wait for the girls. Was April coming over at the same time?”

“She should be here any minute,” Kurt says, nodding. “Unless she got lost on I-75, which normally I would say isn’t possible, but this is April.”

“She remembers she’s my date, right?” Finn says, laughing, as he heads out the door. “That would be bad otherwise.”

“That she remembers,” Puck nods. 

When Finn gets back to his own room, everybody else is dressed and ready. “Nice knot,” Mike says to Finn with a nod. 

“Oh, thanks, yeah,” Finn says. The doorbell rings, then, and Sam and Mike practically snap to attention. Finn laughs at them. “Guess your women are here!”

“Let’s go downstairs!” Sam agrees, nodding, and Kurt and Puck join the other four of them in the hall, heading downstairs. 

Finn opens the door and declares, “My lesbian is here!” when he sees it’s April on the front porch. Sam and Mike both look a little pitiful, because their dates aren’t there yet, but Finn lets April in. 

April laughs. “I am here, and I am your lesbian. For the evening, anyway.” She waves a small box. “Don’t worry, I brought my own flowers,” she says before turning to Kurt and Puck. “So Puckerman’s a queen. Who’d’ve thought?”

“Have you been talking to Zizes and ’Tana?” Puck sighs. 

“Nope! But I should!”

“It’s lovely to see you too, April,” Kurt says. 

“Ready to get tossed in the air?” Finn asks. 

“Absolutely! Like a pound of flour.”

Before Finn can respond to that, the doorbell rings again, and this time Puck answers it, since he’s closer. “Ladies,” he says, since this time it _is_ the rest of the girls, and they squeeze through the door one by one.

“Oh, you guys look so awesome!” Tina says to all of the guys. 

“Some of us look awesomer than others,” Finn says. “Well, Kurt looks awesomer, but that’s because he didn’t have to rent his tux.”

“I’ll use it,” Kurt shrugs. “It seemed like a wise investment. But don’t the girls look lovely?”

“Yes,” Sam answers, nodding. 

“Sure! You girls look great,” Finn says. 

“Finding the dresses was… surprisingly fun,” Santana says grudgingly. 

“Does this mean we can eat now?” Puck says, grinning. 

“Just because you don’t have a date, Puck,” Mercedes says, shaking her head. 

“Hey, I have a _job_ ,” Puck says, raising his eyebrow. “I have to be a better Prom Queen than Brittany over there. That’s hard work.”

“That’s true,” Brittany says. “I’m amazing.”

“See?” Puck shrugs. “Let’s eat.”

“What are we having?” Tina asks. “I’m so excited!”

“It’s a surprise. Still,” Mike says. 

“This way, ladies,” Finn says, ushering the girls into the kitchen, where the table is already set.

“Sushi!” Rachel is the first to react. “And… rice balls? And some of them are vegan, I can tell!”

“Yeah, we totally made vegan ones for you,” Finn says, making a face at Puck over Rachel’s head. 

“Oh, that’s so wonderful!” Rachel says.

“So creative,” Tina says, nodding. “We were afraid we were going to have Italian.”

“This is awesome,” Brittany says. “I want to eat all of it. Can I have some of all of it?”

“Of course,” Kurt answers her. “Sit down, ladies.”

The girls all sit down and the boys run around and put stuff onto all the girls’ plates. Once they start eating with the chopsticks that Mike helpfully lifted from the dim sum place, the guys all help themselves to sushi and rice balls and bowls of rice with things on top of them.

“Oh, this _is_ awesome,” Finn says. “We are awesome, dudes.”

“We did do well,” Kurt nods. “Even if there’s fewer rolls than we thought.”

“We tried, dude,” Finn says. “Roll fail.”

“I can’t be in two places at once.” Kurt shrugs. “I take it we’re eating standing up?”

“Unless you want to eat in the living room, I guess,” Finn says. “Or I could bring down your desk chair if you want to sit at the table.”

“I don’t think there’s room for anyone else,” Kurt points out. “Eight girls, remember? We’re outnumbered.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s true.” Finn frowns. “Guess we’re standing.”

“Most of you, anyway,” Artie says. 

 

As big as the Hummer limo is, it’s still a pretty tight fit with all of them and Artie’s chair and all those purses and the little overnight bags that Sam and Mike are both carrying that the rest of them pretend not to notice. The ride to the Civic Center is only a few minutes, luckily, so Finn endures April sitting on his lap, even if she is possibly the loudest girl he has ever met in his whole life. Puck and Kurt were not kidding about the going deaf thing.

“Does anyone remember what the theme was?” Mercedes asks. “I didn’t pay too much attention.”

“Something with mermaids,” Brittany says. “But I’m not sure if they invited the crab or not.”

“I don’t think he or the fish will be there, Britt-Britt,” Santana tells her. “But if the DJ takes a break, you can sing one of the songs.” She looks around the inside of the limo, raising one eyebrow challengingly. 

“We’ll all do ‘Under the Sea’ with you, if you want,” Artie says. “It’ll be just like at your last birthday.”

“Wait, we actually get a DJ?” Mercedes grins. “I hope it’s not that awful one near the school with the ugly truck.”

It is the one with the ugly truck. The truck’s parked right in front of the Civic Center and Mercedes groans when she sees it. “Maybe it won’t be as bad as we think?” Tina offers, shrugging. 

“Ten bucks says the first song we hear is Savage Garden or Richard Marx,” Mike says. “Any takers?”

“I’ll put ten on Taylor Swift,” Finn says. 

“Ten on Train” is Puck’s bet, and Kurt shakes his head. 

“No way. Bryan Adams, or ‘I Don’t Want to Miss A Thing’.”

“Hip-hop,” Artie insists. “Always what they play early in the night.”

“Gotta name an artist, dude,” Sam says. “I say Enya.”

“Fine. Usher.”

“Anyone else want in?” Mike asks with a grin. “Girls?”

“I think they’ll open with classics like ‘Can You Feel the Love Tonight?’” Rachel says. “So, yes. I’m in.”

“Because we’re in middle school and that’s what they play,” Finn whispers to Kurt. 

Kurt chokes back a laugh and nods. “Rachel _is_ still in middle school,” Kurt whispers back. “Claire’s. Those clothes.”

“And _that’s_ why we never slept together,” Finn says. “Jail.”

Kurt starts laughing loudly, leaning against Puck and then back against Finn. “Finn!” he says after he gets his breath. “Jail!”

“I know! I am _so_ not the kind of guy who could handle that,” Finn says, shaking his head.

“Oh, look. We’re here,” Kurt gasps, still laughing, but not as hard. “Time to turn the key and get the sardines out.”

They all pile out of the Hummer and turn their tickets in at the door. When they walk in, Mike does a satisfied spin in place, and that’s the only way Finn knows that the song playing is either by Savage Garden or Richard Marx. “Thanks, guys. That’s half of the hotel room,” Mike says, grinning. 

“Wanky,” Santana snorts, grabbing Brittany and pulling her out onto the dance floor. Mike and Tina follow them, and then Mercedes takes Sam’s hand as well. 

“You want to dance this one or wait for the next?” Finn asks April.

“Let’s see what the next song is!” April answers, looking around the room. 

“What do you think the deal with all the netting is?” 

“Maybe we’re fish that have been caught.” April shrugs. 

“That kind of describes everything about high school,” Finn says. “Truth in prom theming.”

“Very daring of them.” The music changes and April perks up. “We should dance now!”

“Definitely,” Finn says, and he offers his arm to April, which she takes with a grin. Maybe ‘Sexy and I Know It’ isn’t the best song for swing dancing, but that’s just about the only dancing Finn knows how to do, so he throws April around for a while. He gets some pretty good height with her, considering he’d been carrying boxes all morning, and by the time the song is over, both of them are laughing. Kurt and Puck look like they’re having a great time, too, and when the song transitions into some ridiculous slow dance from one of Finn’s mom’s radio stations, everybody just stays with the partner they’ve got and keeps on dancing.

After another fast song, the DJ puts on that awful Meat Loaf song, and Finn sort of twirls April over to Sam. He walks over to Puck and Kurt and actually goes for the cheesy, “Can I cut in?” before grabbing Kurt and making him dance.

“I guess the answer’s yes,” Puck calls back. 

“Hello,” Kurt says, looking amused as they dance. 

“Hey! We hadn’t done this in a while,” Finn explains. “I figure it’s good practice or whatever.”

“No, we haven’t, especially if you don’t count trying to lift me in the kitchen. Which I don’t.”

“That wasn’t dancing. It was proving a point. I’m not sure what point, though, or if I proved it or not.”

“I’m not either, actually.” Kurt shrugs. “I think the rest of our class thinks that the twelve of us in glee club, and our dates, are insane, by the way.”

“Yeah, we kind of are,” Finn agrees. “So, what do you think it is he won’t do, anyway?”

“Play hockey.”

“You think? I always figured it was something, you know, kind of kinky,” Finn says. “Handcuffs? Strap-on?”

Kurt laughs. “I suppose I just thought that kinky was too obvious of an answer.”

“I guess I’m just not as creative as you and Meat Loaf,” Finn says, shaking his head. “Kinky was my go-to answer.”

“Maybe handcuffs while playing hockey?”

“Well, he’d probably break something, so that’s a definitely possibility,” Finn says. 

“Either way, he must not really value love. I mean, if he did, he’d at least consider whatever it is.”

“I know, right? I mean, maybe if he tried _that_ , he might really like it! Stupid Meat Loaf, won’t even try it once for love.”

Kurt laughs again and then tilts his head, obviously quoting something. “This DJ, what do you reckon? The worst in history?”

“Yes,” Finn says. “Definitely. Don’t get this guy for your wedding, or I’m not dancing with you.”

“I don’t think I’ll import a DJ from Lima, anyway,” Kurt says. “But I’ll make you dance with me even if the DJ is Carole, an iPod, and a set of speakers.”

“Like I’d ever really not dance with you at your wedding. What kind of guy do you think I am?” Finn laughs. The song ends and before Kurt can answer what kind of guy he thinks Finn is, Finn pilots Kurt back in Puck’s direction, then goes to retrieve April from a distressed–looking Sam. 

“Did you break Sam?” Finn asks her.

“I just expressed that I could understand why he liked his girlfriend!” April protests. 

“Oh yeah? What’s that?”

“She’s got a _fantastic_ rack.”

Finn doesn’t even bother trying to look shocked. He just laughs and shakes his head. “Yeah, I guess if that’s your thing, she’s the girl to go to for that.”

“Right?” April grins. “But I guess Sam wasn’t expecting that.”

“He’s easy to shock. He’s from Tennessee.”

“Sweet southern gentleman,” April agrees, nodding. 

“See anybody you’d rather go home with?” Finn says, giving April a twirl. “Just let me know. I can see if I can get a name. Kurt says it’s rude to ask them out without knowing their names first.”

April laughs. “Sounds good.”

“And if I see somebody, you can get a name for me. Deal?”

“Only if I approve of her. You might not have good taste. I’ve met your ex-girlfriend, remember?” April grins in a way that probably means she’s joking. 

“Yeah, I guess if that’s all you had to go on, it probably doesn’t look too good for me, huh?” Finn jokes right back. “What if I promise they’re not all like that?”

“All your ex-girlfriends?” April laughs. “Okay, if you say so.”

Finn shrugs, because he’s not really sure what he meant by that, and before long the song is over and this time Finn finds himself being commandeered by Brittany and forced to slow dance with her to ‘Kiss From a Rose’ while [Puck dances with Quinn](https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1Mxd1zdT2UtWr-Lyoqf00Ct1CWZZZvbIw_BSuOxuuAcg) of all people and Kurt dances with Rachel. 

After that, Finn ends up back with April for a few more dances, including a swing song that he thinks he remembers from Aural Intensity’s set, then he decides he’ll ask Quinn for a dance. Kurt’s probably right that the rest of the senior class might think they’re crazy, because they’ve all danced in just about every possible combination of boy–boy, boy–girl, and girl–girl. Oh, except for Finn still should dance with Puck, so when the DJ puts on the world’s cheesiest Aerosmith song, Finn taps Puck on the shoulder.

“Sixth grade dance, dude,” Finn declares. “You’re _obligated_ to dance with me for this one.”

Puck laughs. “Yeah, yeah. You sure you can keep up?”

“Nope. I’ll just stand here and flail while you make me look bad,” Finn says. 

“Dude, lead or follow?”

“Uh. You know what, I’ll follow. I never get to follow.”

“I’ll try not to make you dizzy, anyway,” Puck grins, pulling Finn further out onto the dance floor. 

“You kidding? I’m already dizzy. You see me throwing April up in the air?” Finn shakes his head and lets Puck steer him in a slow circle, one hand on Finn’s lower back and the other holding Finn’s left hand. 

“That should make her dizzy, not you,” Puck points out. He pulls Finn closer to him and starts singing along with the song theatrically. “Do you feel like we’ve just dodged an asteroid?”

“Every single day since I broke up with Rachel, dude,” Finn says. “Nah, that’s not nice. Now I feel guilty and I’ll have to dance with her later. Think she’ll try to drag me over to a hotel room or something, or do you think she’s finally given up?”

“Always hard to say. Just move quickly away if she does something too forward,” Puck suggests.

“I’ll hide behind you and Kurt and you can protect me.” Finn laughs at the idea of having to hide from Rachel. He could just set her on a high shelf and she couldn’t get down to come after him. “What kind of forward do you think she’s planning?”

“Oh, just anything like hands that won’t stay where they’re supposed to,” Puck says, smirking, and Puck’s hand moves down to Finn’s ass for just a second before going back to Finn’s lower back. “Right?”

“Oh, yeah. Uh, right!” Finn says. “So, uh. You’d think with this many people in here, they’d have the air conditioning on or something!”

“It’s probably how the school could afford to have prom here. Discount rate if we don’t turn on the air conditioning.”

“Yeah. Hot in here for people wearing tuxes,” Finn says. 

“I think wearing a tux is _always_ a hot proposition.”

Finn has no real reasponse to that, and then the song transitions from Aerosmith into that ‘Truly Madly Deeply’ song, and the two of them stand there for a second, Puck’s hand still on Finn’s back. Puck leans in and brushes his lips against Finn’s cheek briefly. Finn blinks, startled, but then he laughs and finally says, “Go find your boyfriend. I’m getting punch and seeing if I can cool off or something. Find some air conditioning.”

“Good luck with _that_. If you find it, let us know.”

“You’ll be the first people I tell, I swear,” Finn says. 

 

Kurt drains the cup of punch and sets it back on the table, shaking his head. “Couldn’t we get larger cups?”

“It’s a conspiracy,” Puck agrees as Sam and Mercedes walk up and sit down. “See, they have even smaller cups.”

“The biggest cups are in the back, apparently,” Sam informs them. “Biggest being a relative term.”

“Indeed.”

“I’m going to sit the next song out, Sam,” Mercedes says. “You go on and dance, though.”

“Huh. Well.” Sam looks around the table and Kurt has to fight back a laugh. “Puck, you want to dance?”

Mercedes starts to laugh as Puck nods, both of the other boys grinning. “Kurt, you’ve started some kind of trend.”

“Not me,” Kurt assures her. “Blame my brother, I think. Though I only have suspicions.”

“You going to sit this one out too? It’s too bad you didn’t have a date this year, boo.”

“Mmm.” Kurt shakes his head. “I’m taking the Brittany approach to prom?” He looks around the room briefly and sees April dancing with Santana, and Finn awkwardly dancing with Rachel. “Speaking of Brittany, I think I’ll go dance with her.” Kurt stands and waves to Mercedes as he weaves through the crowd towards Brittany. “Want to dance, Brittany?”

“I always want to dance,” Brittany says. 

“Do you dance in your sleep, even?” Kurt can’t resist asking as he takes her hand. 

“Are you watching me?” Brittany asks. “I thought I turned off the webcam, but I think my cat keeps turning it back on when I get up to go to the bathroom.”

“I’ve heard that cats are quite sneaky at times, so I suppose that’s possible,” Kurt settles on as a reply. “Was he disappointed not to be attending prom?”

“He can’t dance. It bothers his hip ever since he had the replacement.”

“That’s too bad,” Kurt says, trying for sympathy in his tone. “What are you and Santana doing after it’s over?”

“We’re going to a big afterparty at Amelia’s house. Quinn’s coming with us. I think I’m going to ask April to come, too,” Brittany says. “She’s fun and she’s a good dancer.”

“She is fun,” Kurt concedes. “Also loud.” 

“Santana is loud, too. Loud people are fun.”

“I suppose they can be, yes.”

“I saw Finn dancing with Puck. I also saw him dancing with you. He dances better with you two than he does with Rachel,” Brittany says. “You should dance with him more.”

“Well,” Kurt laughs. “It’s not hard to dance with him better than Rachel, since he’s trying to keep her at a two or three foot radius, I think.” Kurt frowns. “Diameter? Some kind of circle term.” 

“He needs a hula hoop. He could make her stand outside it.”

“I do like the way you think, Britt,” Kurt smiles as the song ends. “Go grab your girl.”

“Go grab your boy,” Brittany counters, before skipping off to find Santana. 

Kurt shakes his head slightly and finds Puck walking back to the same table where they and Sam left Mercedes, pulling Puck back to the edge of the dance floor. “I sense a conspiracy, do you?”

Puck snorts and grins. “Yeah, I think so.”

They alternate dancing and sitting out songs for a little while before Santana marches over to them. “You’re dancing one song with me, Puckerman, because it’s fucking hilarious.”

Puck snorts. “That it is.”

As Puck and Santana walk towards the other dancers, Artie rolls up to where Kurt is sitting, and says, “I was told I had to dance with you, but I thought you might have your own opinions about that.”

“I wondered when you’d show up,” Kurt admits. “You’re the last one, you know.”

“Well, I don’t move as fast as the other guys,” Artie says. “Harder to get to you through the crowd.”

“I can’t help that I’ve apparently reached new heights in popularity this evening.” Kurt shrugs. “The real question is if my brother’s going to start approaching random guys to dance with me.”

“No, this was preplanned,” Artie says. “Apparently we’re your smokescreen, so you can dance all you want with Puck without anybody else figuring it out. I’m not sure if it was for your sake or Puck’s, but since Puck was there when Finn informed us we’d all be dancing with you, I’m guessing for yours.”

Kurt shakes his head, trying not to laugh. “Well, Sam and Finn both took it upon themselves to dance with Puck, too, at any rate.” He tilts his head. “Want to attempt to find bigger cups of punch and call it a dance?”

“Yes, please!” Artie says. “It’s not that I don’t want to dance with you, so much as I don’t want to dance with anybody at the moment.”

“I’m saving my strength for the coronation,” Kurt says dryly as they make their way towards one of the refreshment stations. “Do you and Lauren have any plans for afterwards?”

“We’re going to the midnight showing of _Rocky Horror Picture Show_ in Findlay. We’re leaving as soon as Lauren wins Prom Queen, no offense to your boyfriend.”

“She told him herself that the best queen should win, so.” Kurt grins as they reach the table with the miniaturized cups. “He’s a shoo-in.”

Artie laughs and shakes his head, “Well, then it’s good we have plans out of town, so the two of them aren’t in the same room together, whatever the results. What are you guys doing after?”

“Oh, we’re just going to go over to Pat’s for a little while before going home. Finn and April were going to come with us, but Brittany said she was going to invite April to the same afterparty they were going to, so it may just be us and Finn.”

Artie raises his eyebrows and shakes his head again. “So, your afterprom plans are to hang out with your brother? I think it’s possible the two of you fail at being guys at prom. You’d think you’d get double the mileage out of the traditional male prom plans.”

“There’s beer at home. I liberated it earlier.”

“So you’re going to hang out with your brother and drink beer? Yeah, you’re party animals.”

“Saving the party for when we’re home.” Kurt shrugs. “Rather spend the money and the time there. Even if it’s not the best plan to party too much before competing.”

“Well, we’ll be partying hard with transvestites and rolls of toilet paper, so I think we’re good,” Artie says. 

The demented song about a cup comes to an end, and Kurt dips his head in Artie’s direction. “Thanks for the ‘dance’.”

“Any time.”

Kurt nods again and walks towards where he last saw Puck. “Have fun?”

Puck grins. “Ironic dancing, right? You danced with Santana earlier?”

“Yes, and yes.” Kurt lets Puck steer him back onto the floor. “Think we’re going to win?”

“No clue.” Puck leans closer, whispering in Kurt’s ear. “I know I want to kiss you right now.”

The music stops abruptly, replaced by a screech of microphone feedback, then Figgins’ voice announcing, “Will all of the Prom Queen and the Prom King candidates please assemble at the front of the dance floor. Please, all of the Prom Queen and the Prom King candidates.”

“That’s us,” Puck says unnecessarily, and Kurt nods. 

“At least I willingly put my name on the ballot this year,” Kurt says dryly, and when they reach the front, Puck slings an arm around Brittany and Kurt goes to stand next to Santana. “Ready to lose, Satan?”

“You wish.”

“I promise I won’t be mean to you when I win, Puck,” Brittany says, leaning around Santana. “You can even wear my crown if you want. Not today, but some time.”

Lauren, Trilby and his girlfriend, and that couple whose names Kurt remember all join them at the front of the dance area. Trilby keeps shooting Kurt and Puck nervous glances, and Kurt hears the girlfriend say, “I’m sure he wasn’t serious about the fingers, Johnny.”

Kurt tries not to laugh, because Trilby looks like laughter from Kurt or Puck either one might send him into full nervous breakdown mode. 

“Before I read the names of your 2012 Prom Queen and Prom King winners, I am pleased to announce that this year’s voting contains no surprise write-ins and that all votes have been tallied and matched to class size to eliminate irregularities,” Figgins says. 

“Imagine that, not accepting an extra fifty or hundred-fifty votes,” Kurt mutters under his breath, and Puck snorts.

Figgins says, “And your 2012 Prom King is…” He makes a big show of opening the envelope and turns to give Kurt an almost worried look before continuing, “Mister Kurt Hummel!”

“Yeah!” Kurt hears Finn yelling from the crowd. “Go Kurt!” Finn’s shout is followed by additional cheers and applause. 

Kurt turns to Santana with a wry smile and then steps forward to accept the crown. “Matching set, indeed,” he says quietly, stepping back into the line while Figgins pulls out a second envelope. This time, he opens the envelope and reads the contents first, taking a deep breath before stepping back to the microphone.

“And your 2012 McKinley High School Prom Queen is… Mister Noah Puckerman.”

“FUCK YEAH!” Finn yells this time, and while the cheers and applause are on a slight delay this time, when they do follow, they’re even louder. 

Puck turns to the other four candidates for Prom Queen with a little smirk. “Sorry, ladies. Best queen.”

Trilby’s girlfriend sniffles slightly, and the girl who Kurt will probably never know the name of just looks resigned. Brittany looks a little sad, but quickly darts out to give Puck a hug before returning to stand next to Santana. 

“Damn, Puckerman,” Lauren says, shaking her head and sounding impressed. “Guess you are the best queen.”

“Told you,” Puck laughs. 

Figgins has to stretch a little to set the crown on Puck’s head, and the result is that the crown sits unevenly. Kurt shakes his head a little and steps forward, straightening it. “Queens have to have their crowns looking proper, you know.”

“Absolutely,” Puck says with a grin. 

Figgins looks over at the DJ with a beseeching expression on his face, and the DJ seems to understand that’s the cue to start the music again. Their assembled classmates slowly clear a place in the middle of the floor, and Kurt starts laughing when he realizes the music playing is ‘Time After Time’. 

“We are so cliche, aren’t we?”

“Oh, definitely. Small midwestern towns are always electing gay couples Prom King & Queen,” Puck responds, also laughing. “But I doubt we’re ever going to meet many other couples where they have one king’s crown and two queens’ crowns between them.”

 

Finn, Puck, Kurt, Quinn, Lauren, Artie, Santana, Brittany, and April all pile back into the limo, and Finn thinks it’s probably too bad that Quinn’s riding back with them, since Puck and Kurt look like they’re about five seconds away from being all over each other. They kind of always look a little bit like that, but the crowns emphasize it or something. There’s a lot less prom recap on the way back to Finn’s house than he would have expected, but there’s two non-Queens and one non-King riding back with them, so maybe they’re in bad moods. Britt and Santana _are_ all over each other, and April looks interested enough that Finn thinks maybe he’ll have to get the garden hose after her when they get home. 

Once they get back to Finn’s, everybody who’s leaving splits off to their own cars with quick goodbyes. April gives Finn a hug and grabs his butt before telling him, “See you at Pride,” and then getting into the back of Santana’s car next to Quinn. 

“Still want to hit Pat’s?” Puck asks. 

“Are _you_ sure you want to hit Pat’s?” Finn says. “’Cause I’m pretty sure they have policies on, like, PDA or whatever.”

“I cannot _believe_ I am saying this,” Kurt says very slowly. “But why don’t you drive? If anything happens to the Nav, you owe us $30,000.”

“You two had better keep all your clothes on back there, is all I’m saying,” Finn says. “I’m not that kind of taxi service.”

“Not a long enough drive, dude,” Puck says as they all get into the Nav. 

They keep their clothes on, but Finn’s pretty sure it’s only _barely_ , and he’s glad they pull up at Pat’s when they do. “I’m starving,” Kurt says as he and Puck climb out of the back, brushing off their clothes.

“Prom is hard work,” Puck agrees.

“Yeah, all that dancing,” Finn says. “I thought I’d be glad to get out of the tie, but honestly, it’s the shoes I want to take off.”

“Rental shoes,” Kurt says knowingly. “Let’s get pizza. And ice cream.”

“And doughnuts and coffee,” Finn says. “It’s like multitasking with food.”

“And yet, Artie said we were failing at being guys or something.” Kurt shakes his head. “I don’t know, apparently going to see _Rocky Horror_ is more of a guy thing?” Kurt opens the door and holds it open, gesturing at Puck. “After you, my queen.”

Puck snorts. “Why thank you.”

“You two are just… I don’t even have words for what you two are,” Finn says. “You’re royalty, is what you are.”

“We are. We’re prom royalty, anyway.” Kurt tilts his head up and picks out a booth, sliding in. “Now you have to have a T-shirt that says ‘My Brother was Prom Queen _and_ King’.”

“I’ll do that for sure, dude,” Finn says. “Looking forward to telling that story as many times as possible.”

“Poor Trilby,” Puck says, mock–sadly. 

“Poor Trilby, my ass,” Finn snorts. “He’s a douche and he’s lucky he and his douchey friends backed off of those posters when they did.”

“I was half-expecting a split ticket, to be honest,” Kurt says. 

“You and Zizes?” Finn asks. “If I’d thought about that, I might have voted that way.”

“Hey!”

“But then I’d have missed out on seeing you in a crown, which would be just, like, terrible, dude,” Finn says. “You’re the prettiest princess.”

“Queen. _Queen_.”

“Yeah, but that’s not that thing. You know, the thing the writing on the posters wasn’t either. Queen and pretty aren’t…” Finn makes a wave of his hand to indicate somebody needs to fill in the blank. 

“Alliterative?” Kurt asks. “No, that’s true. Radiant royalty?”

“I’m not calling anybody radiant,” Finn says. “Makes me think of _Charlotte’s Web_. Remember when we read that in school, dude?”

“What was that? Fourth grade? And everyone had to do those shoebox things.”

“Yeah, those things were so awful. And we used those big plastic spider rings from Halloween and that one girl screamed at them!”

“That girl screamed at everything.” Puck turns towards Kurt. “She decided on a Friday the 13th that our teacher was actually a serial killer or something. It was insane.”

“Serial killing teacher in Lima. That _is_ insane, unless your fourth grade teacher was actually Sue Sylvester.”

“Those shoebox things were the best part about that book,” Finn says. “That book was _sad_.” Their food arrives and they all dig into the pizza. After he’s eaten a slice, Finn says, “Hey, one of you should let me wear your crown.”

“Experiencing a sudden regret for your untimely ouster last year?” Kurt asks, grinning. “I didn’t know you cared so deeply, darling.”

“It’s just that everybody gets to be pretty but me, is all,” Finn says. “Doesn’t seem fair. I never, ever get to be the pretty one.”

“Oh, so it’s _my_ crown you’re after.” Puck laughs. “I see how it is. You think I’m not pretty enough.”

“I was actually thinking about stealing Kurt’s, since he’s got another one at home.”

“No. This is part of my matching set, you can’t steal it. For one night, I am the mostly–benevolent ruler.”

“Can I wear your other queen crown when we get home, then? You can rule over me there, too,” Finn says. 

“Oh, for you? I rule over you more than just one night,” Kurt says, smirking. 

“Yeah, that’s probably true,” Finn says. “Bossofme.”

“I’ll tell you things to do. Good things. For you, I mean. Things that are good for you to do.” Kurt takes a bite of his pizza, shrugging slightly. 

“The world probably would run more smoothly if everyone did just listen to Kurt,” Puck says, nodding. 

“I’d outsource some of the work to Disney.”

“And somehow we’re back to those cartoon birds and mice that help you dress in the morning,” Finn says. 

“Which you’ve never actually seen.”

“It would ruin the magic if I saw them,” Finn says. “And there’s obviously some kinda magic happening in there, ’cause look at you. Crown, just like Disney.”

“That might have had more to do with your—what was the phrase—‘campaign of terror’.”

“I have no recollection of that, your highness,” Finn says. 

“Majesty, dude.”

“I’ll call you whatever you want if you let me eat the last slice of pizza,” Finn says. 

“I like this deal,” Puck says, grinning widely.

“Wait, what are you gonna have me call you, Kurt?” Finn asks. 

“There’s no time limit on when we call it in, right?” Kurt says, pushing the slice of pizza closer to Finn. 

“You can’t just call me up in the middle of work or whatever and have me call you something, I dunno. Embarrassing. There’s no time limit, but there’s a… locational limit.”

“Geographical restriction, check.” Kurt shrugs. “All right.” 

“And not in front of, uh. People,” Finn says. 

“No people. Wait.” Kurt does his head tilt thing. “Does that mean we’re not people?”

“You’re not people. You’re better than people,” Finn says, shrugging. “It’s not the same.”

“I’m going to tell people that, definitely,” Puck says. “We’re better than people. They’ll look at us funny, but they already do that.” He looks around the mostly–empty restaurant pointedly, and there are a few odd looks in the direction of their table. 

“Well, we’re eating at Pat’s in tuxedos and you two are wearing crowns,” Finn points out. “How else should they look at you? They can’t figure out which one of you is supposed to be the pretty one.”

“Oh, that’s easy. For tonight, we both are.” Kurt laughs and leans closer to Puck. 

“Yeah, and I’m still the one that does the heavy lifting,” Finn says. “Life is just unfair.”

Kurt and Puck exchange a glance, smirking at each other, and then Kurt nods and the two of them half–stand, leaning across the table before each of them kisses Finn on the cheek, one on either side. They sit back down, still smirking. 

Finn makes a big show of wiping off his cheeks. “Ewww. Now I have cooties, dude! Uncool!”

“I think,” Kurt whispers loudly, “that makes him the girl whose pigtails we’re supposed to pull? But I never played those games.”

“I promise if I ever grow pigtails, you can pull them,” Finn says. 

“So sweet, dude.”

“Let’s go see about the liberated bottles in my room,” Kurt says. 

“Best plan ever,” Finn agrees. They all stand up and head back to the Nav. “Am I driving this time, too?”

“Yes. Enjoy it. Not too many more opportunities, et cetera.”

“I can come drive it around the city when I come to visit, at least,” Finn says.

“Not taking it,” Kurt says, shaking his head and handing his keys back to Finn. “Dad’s going to sell it for us once he drives it back here in August.”

“Well, shit! End of an era, dude.”

“Hard to pass up thirty thousand.” Kurt shrugs. “And parking in the city is – well, you could buy a house in Lima for that much a month.”

“Harsh. I’m glad I can take my truck with me to Madison, at least,” Finn says, as he gets into the driver’s seat and starts the Nav. “I’d be lonely without it. I guess you guys have you guys, though. You won’t be homesick.”

“Your truck is going to keep you from being homesick?” Kurt looks confused as they climb in. “Okay?”

“Well, probably it won’t, but at least it’ll feel like having a little bit of Lima with me,” he says. “I’ll have all new people and an all new place to live and all new things to do, but I’ll still have my same old truck.”

“Okay,” Puck says after a minute. “Guess that’s true.”

Kurt and Puck go right back to making out on the drive home, and Finn feels like maybe he should just leave them out in the Nav when he goes in, because maybe this beer thing could wait until they’ve gotten whatever prom crown whatever it is they need to do out of their systems. When the Nav stops, though, they come up for air, and Finn says, “We’re home.”

“Beer,” Puck says, and they manage to get out of the Nav, into the house, and up the stairs without ever completely letting go of each other. 

“Finn, will you get the cooler out?” Kurt says when they reach Kurt’s bedroom. “It’s in the closet. It is a cooler that cannot be open about itself.”

“It needs cooler PFLAG,” Finn says, stepping into Kurt’s closet to grab the cooler. “This is heavy. How much beer do you have in here? All of it?”

“One box. Luckily, your mother just went to Costco. Unluckily, Dad appears to always want the exact same brand.”

“Isn’t he gonna notice at some point that all his beer keeps disappearing at random times?” Finn asks. “It’s not like he’s gonna think the beer gnomes came and stole it.”

“I don’t think he counts it. He just gets a new box periodically, and sometimes he has one of us do it, anyway.” Kurt shrugs. “We’re not driving after we drink.”

“We’re awesomely responsible. Go us,” Finn says. He goes to sit down on the floor next to Kurt’s bed, and Puck gives him a weird look.

“What are you doing down there, dude?”

“Sitting? Two of you looked like you might need to take up the whole bed or something, and I thought it might be safer down here,” Finn says, standing up and sitting down on the bed next to Puck. “I’m so glad to have those stupid shoes off. New life lesson: never rent shoes.”

Kurt gets a huge smile on his face. “See, some people _never_ learn that, Finn.”

“I’m a fast learner,” Finn says. “Well, about shoes, anyway.”

“What’s that called?” Puck frowns. “The kind of learning with your hands. Or feet, I guess.”

“Pedantic,” Finn says. 

“No, kinesthetic,” Kurt says. “Why don’t we have beer yet?”

“I don’t know. I put it over there by you. You’re the bossofbeer.”

Kurt reaches over to his bedside table and pulls something out, then tosses it to Puck. “Open us some beer, baby.”

“Three beers, coming up,” Puck agrees, and he leans over to grab them each a bottle, popping off the caps before passing them out. “There’s more where that came from.”

“This is better than some afterprom party, right?” Finn says. “You guys are better company than a party.”

“That’s because it isn’t really a party unless we’re there,” Kurt grins. “And yes. I know what’s in my beer, we don’t have to sleep on the floor, and no one is puking near us.”

“Isn’t that the point of afterprom parties? The group puking, right? That and Brittany stripping, I’m pretty sure,” Finn says. “I bet April’s enjoying that.”

Puck and Kurt both laugh. “Oh, I’m sure she is,” Puck agrees. “April probably thinks that she’s found the best afterprom ever.”

“It sounds like a bad documentary, actually.” Kurt takes a long drink of his beer. “ _When Lesbians Attend Prom_.”

 

“Hey, you two wanna untangle and hand me another beer?” Finn says, picking his head up off the pillow just enough to look over at Puck and Kurt. 

‘Not really,” Kurt says, giggling, “but we’ll get you another beer one way or another.” Kurt does untangle from Puck enough to reach another bottle and open it before passing it to Finn. “Your beer, sir.”

“Well aren’t you sweet?” Finn says, accepting the beer. “This is awesome. We should have prom, like, every weekend.”

“Not very sweet.” Kurt shakes his head and takes a long drink of his own beer, which results in Puck biting at Kurt’s neck. “We could just sit in here and drink without the other parts, you know.”

“Yeah, you’re sweet. Don’t argue with me, I know what I’m talking about,” Finn says. “I know lots of stuff. And the other parts were fun and you’ve got the matched set now!”

Puck laughs, but Kurt just sticks his tongue out at Finn without saying a word. Finn rolls a little until his head is propped up on Kurt, who is mostly on top of Puck. 

“It was fun,” Puck says slowly. “But nah, not every weekend.” He looks down at Finn. “You have fun with your lesbian?”

“She’s smallish and she went pretty high in the air,” Finn says. He nods his head and Kurt giggles, because Finn’s head is right on top of Kurt’s ribs, so Finn has to nod his head again and make Kurt giggle again.

“But you didn’t get any kisses,” Kurt says, managing to sound sad even though he’s still giggling a little. 

“Well, I’m pretty sure I’m not April’s type,” Finn says, nodding his head against Kurt’s ribs again. “Guess next time you’ve got to find me a non-lesbian date, huh?”

“We could fix that for you,” Puck agrees. 

Kurt giggles again. “Not April, he doesn’t mean fixing April or making you April’s type.”

“That’s… confusing,” Finn says, laughing. “You just said April’s name, like, a _lot_.”

“But you’re _our_ type!” Kurt laughs again, like it’s the punchline to a great joke.

Finn snorts. “Yeah, yeah. Totally your type.” 

“Are you questioning our… our… fabulousness?” Puck snorts.

“I would never question your, uh,” Finn laughs. “Your whatever you just said just now. That thing there.”

“Then come here, doofus!”

“Wait, what?” Finn rolls a little, and then his head’s kind of right in the middle of Kurt’s chest. 

“We are going to fix.” Kurt nods. 

“Yep. Going to fix your lack.”

“My lack of lesbian kisses?”

“Lack of prom kisses.” Kurt nods again. 

“Just come here,” Puck whines, and then they’re moving around underneath him until Finn is the one underneath and there’s a pair of warm lips on his, and there’s another set lips brushing very softly along his jawline. Finn’s not totally sure when he moved his arms, either, but he’s got one arm around each of them, pulling them closer against him, and he lets his lips part a little, pressing his mouth a little harder against… Puck’s, maybe? He opens his eyes the tiniest bit. Yes, Puck’s.

Puck’s lips taste like beer and they’re just as soft as they were last time, and Finn’s brain doesn’t really focus too hard on the _last time_ because that’s probably a really, really bad plan. If that’s Puck’s mouth on his, then that means the lips moving to Finn’s throat belong to Kurt, and Finn is sure there’s a bunch of really rational reasons why they don’t do this all the damn time, but he’s not able to come up with any. 

“My turn,” Kurt says very quietly, and Puck’s lips slide to Finn’s neck as Kurt’s lips close on top of Finn’s mouth, Kurt’s tongue pushing inside Finn’s mouth pretty forcefully. Finn kisses Kurt back just as forcefully, and the hand that was on Kurt’s back slides down, finding the edge of Kurt’s shirt and then slipping underneath it and back up, until Finn’s palm is pressed against Kurt’s shoulder blades. 

There are hands in Finn’s hair and another hand slowly runs down his chest until it stops abruptly over his abs, and then Kurt’s lips disappear. “Ohh,” someone says quietly, and the hands leave as Puck and Kurt both sit up, looking slightly sheepish. 

“Don’t go,” Finn says. 

“Not going anywhere,” Kurt says after a moment. “Just. Stopping. We’re all…” He trails off. “We should sleep now.”

Finn closes his eyes for a second and takes a deep breath. Everything’s spinning, but he’s not sure if it’s the beer of if it’s them. “Ok,” he finally says. “Ok. Yeah, that’s. Ok. I’ll just…” Finn sits up and then everything is _really_ spinning. “Fuck,” he mutters. 

“Shouldn’t’ve had the last beer,” Puck says, draping Finn’s arm around his shoulder. “C’mon.”

“Yeah. That was, yeah. Too much beers.” 

Puck steers Finn down the hall and into Finn’s bed. “Drink water as soon as you get up, dude, or if you get up to piss.”

“Right back at ya,” Finn says, rolling over onto his side. “Tell Kurt…” Finn doesn’t finish, because he’s not sure what he wants Puck to tell Kurt, and it’ll probably keep until morning anyway.


	4. After Prom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What happens after the end of the episode (after poor, drunk Finn gets dumped in his lonely, lonely bed).

When Puck gets back to Kurt’s room, Kurt’s more than halfway undressed, and Puck hurries to catch up, the two of them quietly and quickly shedding their tuxedos. Puck even makes the effort to more or less hang it all up, and then he pulls Kurt to him, both of them landing on the bed. 

Puck’s not even sure who technically initiates the kiss, just that their lips are on each other’s, mouths open and tongues thrusting. Clinging to each other in the back of the Nav on the way to and from Pat’s wasn’t really enough, not in Puck’s opinion, and judging by the way Kurt’s clutching at him, not in Kurt’s opinion either. 

Not kissing Kurt while they were dancing, not touching him while they were riding back in the limo, all of the frustration of hours of essentially performing without much of a break – Puck thinks it may have nearly broken him. 

Puck cries out quietly with relief when he feels two of Kurt’s fingers press inside him. He knows he didn’t register Kurt getting out the lube, but the fingers are slick and slip in easily. Kurt’s lips and teeth are all over Puck’s collarbone and chest, and Puck just closes his eyes, his arms around Kurt and hands on Kurt’s ass. 

It’s going to be fast, Puck can tell, fast and hard, and when Kurt urges him to turn over, Puck complies. Kurt’s fingers disappear, and Puck whines until Kurt’s cock takes their place, slamming in hard. “Fuck, yes,” Puck whispers.

“What was that, baby?” Kurt asks, equally quiet. 

“Fuck me. Please.” Puck pushes back, towards Kurt, and Kurt’s hands tighten on Puck’s hips.

“Yes,” Kurt hisses, and then he’s moving, pounding hard and fast into Puck, and Puck bites down hard on his lip to keep from making far too much noise for the hour and the place. Judging from the muffled noises above him, Kurt’s having the same difficulty, and Puck pushes back again, tightening around Kurt. Kurt’s fingers dig into Puck’s skin, and Puck’s own hands are trying desperately to clutch at the sheets. 

When one of Kurt’s hands slips from Puck’s hips at last around to Puck’s cock, Puck lets out a low cry, and it only takes a few strokes from Kurt before Puck starts to come. He can feel Kurt filling him, and then Kurt collapses on top of him. They don’t move for a few moments, and then shift until they’re curled up against each other. Kurt pulls the sheets over them and then reaches for the lamp, turning it off. 

“Thanks for being my queen,” Kurt says after a moment. 

“Anytime, blue eyes.”


End file.
